Vista Management Plan for the Historic Carriage Road System, Acadia National Park, Volume I: Vista Management Overview and Treatment Framework.
Killion J, Foulds E, Bowman B, Rebekah Everett R, McSherry L, Piper J. 2023. Vista Management Plan for the Historic Carriage Road System, Acadia National Park, Volume I: Vista Management Overview and Treatment Framework.. Cultural Landscape Management Plans. National Park Service. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Boston, Massachusetts
The picturesque landscape of Mount Desert Island serves as the setting for the historic carriage road system at Acadia National Park, located in Hancock County, Maine. Acadia was the first national park established east of the Mississippi River and today protects over 47,000 acres across Mount Desert Island, Schoodic Peninsula, and numerous smaller islands. Acadia National Park’s carriage roads were envisioned, designed, and funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. One hundred and ten years ago, in 1913, Rockefeller constructed his first carriage road at his 15-acre estate in Seal Harbor, Maine, to enjoy carriage driving and sightseeing. When the last carriage road bridge was completed in 1940, Rockefeller had skillfully built a 57-mile-long network of rustic carriage roads that continues to provide motor-free access to some of the park’s most scenic destinations on the eastern half of Mount Desert Island. The carriage roads were deliberately designed to provide panoramic views of the island and the surrounding waters, as well as more intimate framed vistas of marshes, streams, and bridges. Rockefeller did his best to keep the views and vistas open during his lifetime, but after his death most became overgrown until the 1990s when the park began to inventory and assess the overall condition of the carriage roads. Today, the rehabilitated historic carriage roads are a popular way to explore the park, and are shared by bicyclists, pedestrians, and horses. The 45 miles of carriage roads that lie within the park’s boundaries includes 41 individual road sections varying in length from 0.1 to 3.6 miles, 16 of the 17 historic masonry bridges, and the two gatehouse complexes. The remaining sections of carriage roads and the Cobblestone Bridge are privately owned. The carriage roads, along with the park’s motor roads and hiking trails, offer visitors three different means of accessing and enjoying the park’s scenery. The absence of motorized vehicles on the carriage roads allows users to quietly enjoy hundreds of scenic vistas that have been maintained since rehabilitation of the system began in the 1990s. This project aims to document the vista management areas on the carriage roads so that future park leaders can preserve and maintain the views in perpetuity. Due to the geographic extent of Acadia’s carriage roads, the system has been divided into four distinct areas delineated by multiple factors, including location, natural features, topography, elevation, historical development, and similarities in road design. The four districts are: Eagle Lake and Witch Hole Pond Carriage Roads, Hadlock and Aunt Betty Pond Carriage Roads, Jordan and Sargent Mountain Carriage Roads, and the Bubble Pond and Day Mountain Carriage Roads. The scope of this project encompasses 182 vistas currently managed along 45 miles of carriage roads within park boundaries. The impressive number of managed carriage road vistas warrants dividing this report into three volumes. • Volume 1: Vista Management Overview and Treatment Framework. Includes an introduction, project information, carriage road district and segment maps, and tabular vista data. • Volume 2: Vista Site Maps and Recommendations, 1-143 • Volume 3: Vista Site Maps and Recommendations, 144A-271B
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Killion, Jeff; Foulds, Eliot; Bowman, Brendan; Rebekah Everett, Rebekah Everett; McSherry, Logan; Piper, Jennifer
- Date of Issue
- 2023
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- ACAD , NER
- Keywords
- Architecture, Carriage Roads, Conservation, Conservation of Natural Resources, Developing the American Economy, Engineering, Entertainment – Recreation, Expressing Cultural Values, General Philanthropy, General Recreation, Historic Designed Landscape., Landscape Architecture, Origin And Development Of The National Park Service, Period Revivals (1870-1940), Protection Of Natural And Cultural Resources, reating Social Institutions and Movements, Recreation, Rustic Architecture, Scenic Preservation, Social and Humanitarian Movements, Touring Roads and Parkways, Tourism, Transforming the Environment, Transportation, Transportation by Land and Air