Acadia National Park
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IUCN category II (national park)
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| Location | Hancock / Knox counties, Maine, United States |
| Nearest city | Bar Harbor |
| Coordinates | 44°21′N 68°13′W / 44.350°N 68.217°WCoordinates: 44°21′N 68°13′W / 44.350°N 68.217°W |
| Area | 49,052 acres (198.51 km2)871 acres (352 ha) private |
| Established | July 8, 1916 |
| Visitors | 3,303,393 (in 2016) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | Acadia National Park |
Acadia National Park is a national park located in the U.S. state of Maine. It reserves much of Mount Desert Island, and associated smaller islands, off the Atlantic coast. Initially created as the Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, the park was renamed Lafayette National Park in 1919, and was given its current name of Acadia in 1929. Over three million people visited the park in 2016. Acadia is the oldest designated national park area east of the Mississippi River.
The area was originally inhabited by the Wabanaki people.
While he was sailing down the coast of what is now Maine on 5 September 1604,Samuel de Champlain observed a large inshore island. He wrote:
"That same day we also passed near an island about four or five leagues [19 to 24 km] in length, off which we were almost lost on a little rock, level with the surface of the water, which made a hole in our pinnace close to the keel. The distance from this island to the mainland on the north is not a hundred paces. It is very high and cleft in places, giving it the appearance from the sea of seven or eight mountains one alongside the other. The tops of them are bare of trees, because there is nothing there but rocks. The woods consist only of pines, firs, and birches." He named it Mount Desert Island.
Over four centuries later, the area remains essentially the same.
The first French Missionary colony in America was established on Mount Desert Island in 1613. The colony was destroyed a short time later by an armed vessel from the Colony of Virginia as the first act of overt warfare in the long struggle leading to the French and Indian Wars. The island was granted to Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac by Louis XIV of France in 1688, but ceded to England in 1713. Massachusetts governor Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet assumed control of the island in 1760. In 1780 Massachusetts granted the eastern half of the island to Cadillac's granddaughter, Mme. de Gregoire, while Bernard's son John retained ownership of the western half. The first record of summer visitors vacationing on the island was in 1855, and steamboat service from Boston was inaugurated in 1868. The scenic Green Mountain Cog Railway was built from the shore of Eagle lake to the summit of Cadillac Mountain in 1888, and in 1901 the Maine Legislature granted Hancock County a charter to acquire and hold land on the island in the public interest. The first land was donated by Mrs. Eliza Homans of Boston in 1908, and 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) had been acquired by 1914.
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Wikipedia