We investigate the design, fabrication, and experimental characterization of high quality factor photonic crystal nanobeam cavities in silicon. Using a five-hole tapered one-dimensional photonic crystal mirror and precise control of the cavity length, we designed cavities with theoretical quality factors as high as 1.4×107. By detecting the cross-polarized resonantly scattered light from a normally incident laser beam, we measure a quality factor of nearly 7.5×105. The effect of cavity size on mode frequency and quality factor was simulated and then verified experimentally.