Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station

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Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station is a historic rescue station that is now a museum at Race Point Beach, Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was built in 1897 by the United States Life-Saving Service and designed by George R. Tolman in the "Duluth" style, featuring a tall four-story lookout tower and a jerkin-head roof.

The station originally stood at Nauset Beach near Chatham Harbor, Chatham, MA. In its early years crews rescued many mariners: 21 lives saved with a surfboat and 13 more with breeches buoy equipment.

In 1915 the Life-Saving Service merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard. The Old Harbor station continued as a Coast Guard station until 1944. It was abandoned and sold in 1947 and used as a private home for about 26 years.

In 1973 the National Park Service acquired the property as part of Cape Cod National Seashore, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Because the beach was eroding, the station was moved in 1977: cut in half, loaded onto a barge, and floated to Provincetown. It weathered the Blizzard of 1978 during the move and was reassembled on a new foundation at Race Point Beach. It opened as the Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station Museum in 1978. The park service restored it to look like it did around 1900 and placed the original Race Point surfboat and dory on display.

Today the museum is open daily in the summer as a self-guided exhibit. Admission is included with beach access. Every Thursday in July and August at 6 p.m., rangers perform a Beach Apparatus Drill reenacting breeches buoy rescues.