Cape Elizabeth / Two Lights — The Lighthouse Everyone Thinks Belongs to Portland, a Second Twin-Tower Light, and Maine's #2-Ranked Public High School

Cape Elizabeth: Portland Head Light, Two Lights, and a Headland of State Parks

Cape Elizabeth separated from Falmouth and was incorporated on November 1, 1765, becoming Maine's 23rd incorporated town. It sits in Cumberland County, part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metro area, bordered by South Portland to the north and Scarborough to the west — the two towns share the Spurwink River as part of that boundary. At 45.93 square miles total, Cape Elizabeth is majority water: only 14.70 square miles is land, with 31.23 square miles of water, reflecting its headland shape jutting into Casco Bay. The 2020 Census counted 9,535 residents, up slowly from 9,015 in 2010 and 9,068 in 2000 — a stable, slow-growth population over two decades. The Census Bureau's July 1, 2025 vintage estimate puts the population at 9,827. Notable people connected to the town include Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson, film director John Ford, polar explorer Robert Peary, and actress Bette Davis.

Here is the fact that anchors this entire page: Portland Head Light sits at 1000 Shore Road, inside Fort Williams Park, in the Town of Cape Elizabeth — not within the City of Portland's limits. Construction began under a $750 Massachusetts legislative appropriation in 1787 and was completed with $1,500 in federal funding; the light was first lit on January 10, 1791, making it Maine's oldest lighthouse. The tower stands 80 feet tall. It was automated and formally decommissioned as a Coast Guard-manned station on August 7, 1989. Today the U.S. Coast Guard maintains only the light itself and the fog signal; the Town of Cape Elizabeth owns and manages the surrounding grounds and the 1891-built former Keepers' Quarters, which now houses a museum with a seasonal gift shop. The lighthouse opens to the public only once a year, on Maine Open Lighthouse Day. Portland's other well-known lighthouse, Portland Breakwater Light ("Bug Light"), is physically located in South Portland — not in Cape Elizabeth and not in Portland proper.

Cape Elizabeth Light, commonly known as "Two Lights," is a separate, second lighthouse pairing a few miles south of Portland Head Light. Two rubble-stone towers were built in 1828, 300 yards apart, with Elisha Jordan appointed the first keeper by President John Quincy Adams. The original towers were demolished and replaced in 1873-1874 with two conical cast-iron towers, each 67 feet tall and 129 feet above sea level — one fixed, one flashing, so ships could tell Cape Elizabeth apart from other coastal lights at night. Only the eastern tower remains an active aid to navigation today; the western tower was decommissioned in 1924, served as a WWII fire-control tower, was sold to retired film actor Gary Merrill in 1971, and remains a privately owned residence today with no public access. In January 1885, Keeper Marcus A. Hanna rescued two seamen from the schooner Australia, which ran aground nearby during a severe snowstorm.

Two Lights State Park, which takes its name from that same lighthouse pair, is a distinct, separate 41-acre park that opened in 1961 — the lighthouses themselves actually sit just outside the park's own boundaries. The park offers nearly two miles of trails through forest and seaside rock ledges, plus benches, restrooms, a playground, and picnic tables, along with the remnants of an unfinished WWII coastal-artillery battery. Fort Williams Park is a third, larger, and entirely separate property: a 90-acre former U.S. Army fort (1872-1964) that the Town of Cape Elizabeth purchased in 1964 and formally named Fort Williams Park in 1979. It is free to the public today, with tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts, and it contains Portland Head Light and its museum. Crescent Beach State Park is Cape Elizabeth's own mile-long crescent beach, on land the state has leased since 1961 — this is a different beach entirely from the same-named "Crescent Beach" in Wells, Maine, roughly forty miles down the coast.

Those landmarks are tied together every August by the Beach to Beacon 10K, founded in 1998 by Cape Elizabeth's own Olympic gold medalist, Joan Benoit Samuelson. The course starts at Crescent Beach State Park and finishes at Portland Head Light in Fort Williams Park — literally connecting three of the town's core landmarks in a single race. It drew 6,500 finishers in 2025 and more than $90,000 in annual prize money. Cape Elizabeth High School adds a genuine, current family-relocation draw: an overall Niche grade of A, ranked #2 of 121 public high schools in Maine for 2026, and #1 among 22 public high schools in the Portland metro area. The Cape Elizabeth Land Trust separately protects 560 acres across 22 parcels.

Cape Elizabeth has long been one of Maine's wealthiest towns and, until recently, was literally the highest-median-income Portland suburb: median household income sits at $145,821, with 74.1% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher and an 88.0% homeownership rate. A January 15, 2025 Portland Press Herald story reported that Cumberland, ME newly overtook it, posting a median household income of $154,375 — so Cape Elizabeth is best described as historically the wealthiest Portland suburb, not currently the single wealthiest. Unlike Kennebunkport, Boothbay Harbor, Camden, or Rockland, Cape Elizabeth has no working harbor of comparable scale — a genuine, honest difference rather than a flaw, reflecting a town built around headland scenery and a residential, commuter character rather than a marina or commercial fishing fleet. No named, currently operating charter-fishing or boat-tour business based in Cape Elizabeth was confirmed during this research, consistent with that lack of a harbor.

Dining in Cape Elizabeth centers on two verified, currently operating, named institutions. The Lobster Shack at Two Lights, at 225 Two Lights Road, describes itself as a local landmark that has operated "since the 1920s," sitting on the rocky shore near the Cape Elizabeth Light fog horn with both oceanside picnic tables and an interior dining room. The Well at Jordan's Farm, at 21 Wells Road, is a reservations-only farm-to-table restaurant Chef Jason Williams opened with the Jordan family in 2010, marking its 16th season in 2026, with a $95-per-person tasting menu sourced from the working farm around it. Only these two restaurants were verified in depth for this page — Cape Elizabeth almost certainly has additional dining options not covered here.

The town's most active current civic story is a contentious zoning and housing fight. Developer Bob Gaudreau, owner of Hardypond Construction, proposed a 33-unit senior-housing complex near the town hall; the Town Council approved a broader package of town-center zoning amendments tied to that project in a narrow 4-3 vote, and opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum. This is confirmed as a live, contentious dispute only through mid-2025 — this page does not assert how the referendum or the project itself was ultimately resolved. Note also: Cape Elizabeth, Maine has no connection to Cape Elizabeth, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula, or to Cape Elizabeth on Sakhalin Island, Russia — both are real, unrelated places that happen to share the name.