Kronprinzessin Cecilie
Back in 1914, the town was stunned to wake up on August 4th and find a giant ship, 707 feet long and 72 feet wide, anchored just offshore from the Shore Path.
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These hardy folk subsisted here, farming and fishing, and eventually opening their homes to paying tourists, called Rusticators, who enjoyed the rustic lodgings and the primitive and wild state of the island.
Tourism flourished beginning in the mid-1800s, and the island supported a population of wealthy summer residents who came here to escape the pressures of city life. Acadia National Park was founded by those who wished to see their favorite views and special places preserved for the future, rather than developed and harvested. Thanks to the stewardship and foresight of George B. Dorr and others, the island retains a little of its wild nature, which first attracted visitors in the 1800s. Today, 3.5 million visitors a year enjoy what the park founders fought to preserve.
Learn more about the stories of our past, the people of our present and the inspiration for our future.
A Climate to Thrive
A Climate to Thrive seeks to achieve energy independence for Mount Desert Island by 2030.
Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Maine Coast Heritage Trust was founded in 1970 to protect the very best of the Maine coast, and they’ve come a long way in the last 50 years, conserving more than 150,000 acres and creating more than 100 public preserves open to all.
Samuel de Champlain
During the summer and early fall of 1604, Champlain ventured along the mid-Maine coast as far as Georges River. He named the islands of Mount Desert and Isle au Haut.
The Rusticators
The first summer visitors who came Down East to Mount Desert Island beginning in the 1840s, because of their appreciation for a vacationing ‘rustic’ lifestyle, became known as the Rusticators.
Maine Seacoast Mission
The Maine Seacoast Mission is committed to working with people’s strengths and honoring the capacity of individuals to choose their own course in life.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
A great philanthropist and lover of the island, John D. Rockefeller had the foresight to recognize that traffic could potentially mar a place as beautiful as Mount Desert Island, and that there should be an alternative route of transportation for visitors: the carriage roads.
Reef Point
This estate along the Shore Path in Bar Harbor was built in 1883 for Mary Cadwalader Jones, a close friend and literary agent of her sister-in-law Edith Wharton. Jones’s other friends in New York City included Henry James, Henry Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Fire of ’47
The most dramatic event in modern Bar Harbor history was the 1947 wildfire that burned from October 17th to November 14th, much of that time out of control.
J.T. Morse
In its earliest days as a tourist destination, Bar Harbor was reached not by planes, trains, and automobiles, but by coastal steamer.
Heading “Downeast”
The term comes from the 19th century age of sail, when there were no Interstate highways, and bulk freight traveled by coastal schooner instead of tractor-trailer.
Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory
Over the last decade, the MDI Biological Laboratory has undergone a dramatic transformation to become a growing and rising independent biomedical research, development and education institution, focused on regenerative and aging biology and medicine.
Car Wars on Mount Desert Island
In 1903 a Maine state law was passed allowing the voters in each town to ban cars. The summer people on Mount Desert Island once voted 527 to 27 against them; in 1909 they took the fight back to the state legislature, and got autos banned from all Maine island roads.
The Jackson Laboratory
At The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, they are accelerating disruptive scientific breakthroughs tailored to the needs of individual patients and closing in on the genetic and molecular courses of disease.
George B. Dorr
Known as the father of Acadia National Park, George B. Dorr spent most of his adult life bringing the park into being, caring for the park, and expanding it. It was Dorr’s vision and passion that ensured these lands would be set aside for preservation and protection for future generations.
Friends of Acadia
This independent nonprofit organization of 3,000 members, founded in 1986 and headquartered in Bar Harbor, strives to protect Acadia National Park.
Wabanaki
Nearly 500 years ago, Wabanakis spotted the first European sailing ships cruising along their seacoast. The Wabanaki or People of the Dawnland had lived in Maine for thousands of years, successfully surviving as migratory hunters, fishers, and gatherers.
College of the Atlantic
This small private co-ed nonsectarian school occupies 35 acres along the shore of Frenchman Bay just outside downtown Bar Harbor.
Green Mountain House & Railway
High points like Cadillac Mountain always attract attention. In the late 1800s, when Cadillac was called Green Mountain, a hotel was built at its summit so guests could wake up in their rooms and already be in place to watch the sunrise.
St. Saviour’s Church
A special attraction for visitors to St. Saviour’s is its outstanding selection of more than thirty memorial stained glass windows dating from 1886, including the dozen that make up Maine’s largest collection of Tiffany windows.
Breakwater
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, beginning in 1888, constructed the man-made breakwater that extends 2,510 feet out from Bald Porcupine Island in order to protect Bar Harbor’s town piers and anchorages against storm surges from the south.