National Seashore marks milestone

Some come for the beaches, from Eastham’s Coast Guard Beach - recently named one of the country’s top 10 by “Dr. Beach,’’ Stephen P. Leatherman of Florida International University’s Laboratory for Coastal Research - to Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown. Some bike or hike the extensive trails through the woods, marshlands, and sandy hills of the park’s 44,000 acres. Some come to study the natural and literary history of the region at the park’s visitor centers and museums.

At Marconi Station atop the cliffs in Wellfleet one afternoon last week, Bill and Anne Groth of Perry Hall, Md., were fascinated by the scale model of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless station, where the inventor conducted the first transatlantic radio transmission in 1903.

“I used to teach industrial arts,’’ said Bill Groth, who now heads his school system’s technical support department. “We taught the kids about this thing. This is real cool.’’

The couple, taking a bike ride during their vacation, had little trouble imagining what the Outer Cape coastline would look like today had the land not been set aside.

“Just look at Ocean City, Maryland, and you’ll know,’’ said Anne Groth, a librarian.

Overdevelopment, with condos, hotels, and boardwalk attractions, packed along the shore, necessitated an ongoing beach restoration project in Ocean City, said her husband.

“It’s a let’s-chase-our-tail kind of endeavor,’’ he said.

By contrast, the Outer Cape waterfront remains almost totally untouched by commercial development.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone now who doesn’t think the national seashore is the best thing to happen to the Outer Cape,’’ said Sammartino, who was stationed at the Salt Pond Visitor Center.

Yet that wasn’t a unanimous assessment 50 years ago, said George Price, a former superintendent of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area who has overseen the Cape Cod National Seashore for six years.