Historic Hiking Trail System - Bar Harbor District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Acadia National Park, National Park Service
Coffin Brown M and Killion J. 2017. Historic Hiking Trail System - Bar Harbor District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Acadia National Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 976028. NPS Northeast Regional Office. Northeast Regional Office/CLI Database
The coastal islands and rugged shorelines of Maine serve as the setting for the historic hiking trail system at Acadia National Park, located in Hancock County. Acadia was the first national park established east of the Mississippi River and today encompasses over 47,000 acres across Mount Desert Island, Schoodic Peninsula, and numerous smaller islands. Upwards of 2.5 million visitors annually experience the park’s diverse landscape of granite-domed mountains, woodlands, lakes, marshes, and shorelines of Frenchman Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Three distinct yet integrated circulation systems allow visitors to explore these resources: 115 miles of historic hiking trails offer woodland walks and rugged climbs, 57 miles of historic carriage roads track around lakes and along mountainsides, and 33 miles of historic motor roads stretch from mountain summits to the rocky coasts. By 1867 the framework of the current trail system was established and documented in early guidebooks, which described the island’s scenic views and destinations. Beginning in 1890, village improvement groups rebuilt and expanded paths with log bridges and stepping stones, stone staircases and culverts, and iron rungs and ladders to traverse the island’s varied terrain. These highly crafted engineering features diverted water and provided access in difficult topography, and also made use of local materials that harmonized with the surrounding natural landscape. The efforts of the village groups continued after the establishment of the park in 1916, and continued into the 1930s when the National Park Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps built additional trails. At its peak there were around 270 miles of hiking trails on Mount Desert Island. Although that number has dramatically decreased to less than half that number today, the trails that do remain represent some of the finest examples of well-crafted and maintained hiking trails in the National Park System. Historic Hiking Trail System – Bar Harbor District: The scope of the Northeast Region CLI Program’s work on the historic hiking trail system is concentrated on the 115 miles of currently maintained trails that lie within the park’s boundaries on Mount Desert Island. In order to efficiently document and map trail features for uploading into the national CLI database, the trail system has been divided into four geographical districts that correspond to the jurisdictions of the village improvement groups who developed and maintained them: Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association (VIA), Seal Harbor VIS (Village Improvement Society), Northeast Harbor VIS, and Southwest Harbor VIA (see CLI Hierarchy Map and Site Plans at the end of this report). The focus of this component CLI is the Bar Harbor District, which is currently comprised of 46 maintained trails encompassing around 44.7 miles on the east side of Mount Desert Island. Thirty-eight of the district’s trails were built or rebuilt between 1867 and 1935, while eight trails were built between 1960 and 2014.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Coffin Brown, Margie; Killion, Jeffrey
- Date of Issue
- 2017-09-20
- Publisher
- NPS Northeast Regional Office
- Units
- ACAD , NER
- Keywords
- 1860-1900: Regionalism and Preservation; Private Historical Societies; Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities., Architecture, Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association (VIA), Colored Path System, Community Planning and Development, Conservation, Conservation of Natural Resources, Creating Social Institutions and Movements, Entertainment – Recreation, Expressing Cultural Values, Formation of the Conservation Movement: 1870-1908, Hiking Trail, Historic Designed Landscape, Historic Hiking Trail System – Bar Harbor District, Historic Preservation, Landscape Architecture, Monument (Marker, Overlook, Plaque), Protection of Natural and Cultural Resources, Recreation, Regional Efforts: New England, Rustic Architecture, Scenic Preservation, Social History, Sports (Active), The 1930's: Era of Public Works, The Federal Government Enters the Movement, The Great Depression and Conservation, Tourism, Trail Bridge, Transforming the Environment, Vernacular Architecture, View, Vista