Acadia National Park is one of our more unique parks. Most Park Junkies already know a few of the Acadia facts, like that it is the first park comprised of previously owned land that was donated for the purpose of creating a national park.
While this fact may be interesting to some, below are a few more tasty morsels of knowledge that will be welcome information for the advanced Park Junkie.
Guide to Acadia
Acadia Fun Facts
fact 1: Acadia National Park has had three names.
The original designation of preserved land on Mount Desert Island was named Sieur de Monts National Monument in July of 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson. Three years later, the park would be be elevated to Lafayette National Park, making it the first national park east of the Mississippi River.
This name would remain in place throughout the Roaring 20s, until January of 1929, when the name was changed to Acadia in a compromise to greatly increase the size of the park.
To make a long story short, The name change was used to appease the decedents of John Godfrey Moore. His family donated more than 2,000 acres of the Schoodic Peninsula to national park expansion efforts of George Dorr, who would one day be known as the Father of Acadia.
Moore was a native Mainer who had made a fortune in the telegraph business, then multiplied it through banking ventures and investments in sugar production. He is famous for successfully suing the federal government to stop the new federal income tax in 1893, delaying its implementation by 20 years.
He held a ranch on the Schoodic named Far From the Wolf, which referenced his appreciation of the location’s distance from Wall Street. The wealthy financier held dreams of developing the area of Winter Harbor to offer an alternative destination to Bar Harbor, but illness cut short his dream, and his life. Moore died in 1899, at the age of 51.
His wife later remarried, and his daughters moved to England. By 1929, the land had become too great a burden to bear for his survivors, and presented a prime opportunity as an healthy addition to Lafayette National Park. George Dorr, who had worked tirelessly to add lands to the collection of parcels that made up the park, had nearly negotiated a deal, when the issue of the name came into play.
You see, Moores descendants were Anglophiles, or fans of the English crown, as opposed to the French. Lafayette was a French name, which was chosen to pay homage to the deep French heritage. Ruth and Faith, the remaining heirs to the land, proved resistant to donating their land to a park named in honor of a French hero, so Dorr proposed a new name for the park and its potential addition, size by 20%
As the New England Historical Society tells it, Dorr suggested the name Acadia, in reference to the Greek region of Arcadia, by which many early explorers referred to America. He explained that he had always thought it a very fitting name for the park, and that in his mind, it offered a fine representation of the shared heritage of the Mount Desert region.
The Moore daughters agreed to the proposal and Dorr worked out the re-naming details with the government. In 1929, John Godfrey Moore’s Far From Wolf Ranch, and its surrounding 2,000 acre Schoodic Peninsula, became part of the newly named Acadia National Park, increasing the park’s size by 20%.
fact 2: Acadia is home to the tallest cliffs on the Atlantic Coast.
The park’s tallest point, Cadillac Mountain is the highest point on the entire Eastern Seaboard, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. That’s a long stretch of land! Pretty impressive, Cadillac Mountain!
Due to its height above the surrounding area, this small mountain is also the first place in the Americas to witness the morning’s first rays of sunshine during most of the year.
fact 3: So why is it named Cadillac? Well… okay, this story is kinda fun…
Cadillac Mountain is named after a Frenchman, explorer and adventurer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac. This gentleman was born in 1658, in Gascony, France and hailed from a middle-class family. Upon reaching his 20s, he began to polish his credentials, adding the distinct “de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac” to his title, despite the fact that he was in fact, but a commoner. Classy!
Cadillac soon departed for the Americas and rapidly became an expert on the geographical layout of the North Atlantic coast. He and his wife settled briefly on Mount Desert Island, where they built a house and were listed in the 1688 census. Their stay proved short however, as Cadillac was called away by the French crown to serve as a military advisor to the royal court.
By 1698, Cadillac had made his way back to the American continent and proposed a French colony on the Detroit River. Permission was granted to proceed with the development of an outpost colony, which was named Fort Pontchartrain. This small community would grow to one-day become Detroit, Michigan.
Cadillac’s reputation did not retain the sparkle of many modern cars that bear his name. Rumors arose that the upstart Frenchman bribed foreign enemies, distributed alcohol outside of trade boundaries (he was French after all…) and that he established trade alliances with the British. These activities were frowned upon by the French crown, and Cadillac was sent to govern the territory of Louisiana as punishment for his misdeeds in north.
Historical records indicate that his affairs in the south likewise, proved to lack a strong sense of moral fortitude. In 1717 Cadillac was escorted back to France, where he was sent to the Bastille prison for a few of his more serious crimes, which seemed to hinge on his personal enrichment at the expense of the French Crown.
Ol’ Cadillac must have been a pretty smooth dude however, as he was soon released, and returned to a position of relative importance. He was subsequently handed the governorship of Castlesarriasin, in southern France. He would die there in 1730, at the age of 72.
Today, he is recognized as both the name behind the Cadillac automobile, and for Cadillac Mountain, which bears his name as one of the area’s most notable early European explorers.
fact 4: Acadia is home to a record 338 separate bird species, making it one of the most prominent bird viewing areas in the national parks.
fact 5: Acadia one of the ten smallest national parks by size, but is consistently in the top ten in visitation numbers.
Acadia Stat Sheet
established: February 26, 1919 as Lafayette National Park
renamed: expanded and renamed Acadia National Park in 1929
monument: July 8, 1916 as Sieur de Monts National Monument
rank of admission: 12
size: 47,390 acres
rank in size: 50
annual visitation: 2018 – 3,537,575
rank in visitation: 7
time zone: Eastern Time
park phone: 207 288 3338
Guide to Acadia
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