Nantucket Official Guide 2014-2015 | Page 39

©Katie Kaizer

• About 50,000 white-oak casks were
produced yearly for the whaling industry
by the more than 20 coopers’ shops on
Nantucket during the mid-1700’s to early
1800’s.

• The straw factory was one business
which survived well over many years.
It was largely manned by Nantucket
women, and began in the old Friend’s
Meetinghouse on Main Street in 1852.

• About 35,000 boxes had to be made
annually for the shipping of spermaceti
candles manufactured at the
candlehouses.

• Nantucket Cottage Hospital was originally
located on West Chester Street.

• Nantucket was the last community in
Massachusetts to lift the automobile ban
in 1918.
• A bomb shelter was built on Nantucket for
President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and
was disguised by the US Navy as a “jetassist takeoff fuel bottle storage area”, but
was never used.

• The skeleton of a sperm whale hanging
in the Whaling Museum washed up on
Nantucket’s Low Beach in 1998.
• Work on the State Road to ‘Sconset was
begun in 1894.
• Peak gusts from Hurricane Bob in 19