West Chop is a residential area located in the town of Tisbury, Massachusetts

Tisbury, Massachusetts

Tisbury is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,755 at the 2000 census.Vineyard Haven is the main village/town center of Tisbury. The two names are used interchangeably...

 on the north end of the island of Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard is an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony....

. It is a peninsula surrounded on the north and west by Vineyard Sound

Vineyard Sound

Vineyard Sound is the stretch of the Atlantic Ocean which separates the Elizabeth Islands and the southwestern part of Cape Cod from the island of Martha's Vineyard, offshore from the state of Massachusetts in the USA...

 and on the east by Vineyard Haven Harbor. A lighthouse, West Chop Light

West Chop Light

West Chop Light is a lighthouse station located at the entrance of Vineyard Haven Harbor in Tisbury, Massachusetts on the northern tip of West Chop, a few miles from the village of Vineyard Haven....

, stands at the north end of the chop. It is accessible by car from Vineyard Haven by two roads, Franklin Street and Main Street.

West Chop has no obvious commercial businesses or stores, although it has its own zip code (02573) and a seasonal post office. It also has a private seasonal country club, the West Chop Club, and a nine-hole golf course, Mink Meadows Golf Club. There is also a small graveyard, the West Chop cemetery.

West Chop has been a popular summer resort area since the late 19th century, and has been the summer home to many notable residents, including Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

 engineer Gen. George W. Goethals

George Washington Goethals

George Washington Goethals was a United States Army officer and civil engineer, best known for his supervision of construction and the opening of the Panama Canal...

, Yale

YALE

RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

 president and U.K. ambassador

United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom

The office of United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom was traditionally, and still is very much so today due to the Special Relationship, the most prestigious position in the United States Foreign Service...

 Kingman Brewster, Jr.

Kingman Brewster, Jr.

Kingman Brewster, Jr., was an educator, president of Yale University, and American diplomat.-Early life:...

, United States Secretary of the Air Force

United States Secretary of the Air Force

The Secretary of the Air Force is the Head of the Department of the Air Force, a component organization within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. The Secretary of the Air Force is appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate...

 James H. Douglas, Jr.

James H. Douglas, Jr.

James Henderson Douglas, Jr. was a lawyer and senior-level official in the United States Government. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, serving under both President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin Roosevelt...

, and composer George Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick was an American composer. Along with Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what can be called the New England School of American composers of the late 19th century—the generation before Charles Ives...

.].

In the summer of 1888, a steamboat wharf was completed at West Chop with regular steamship landings from the mainland, and throughout the 1890s the West Chop summer colony boasted two hotels, a bowling alley, a billiard hall, and tennis courts., although today only the club's tennis courts and small private docks remain.