Acadia National Park Motor Roads, Bar Harbor, Hancock County, ME

Significance: Motorists visiting Acadia National Park enjoy a variety of experiences on the park's acclaimed road system. The principal park road is the Park Loop Road, a 20-mile circuit around the eastern half of Mount Desert Island. The road provides visitors with access to the park's varied terrain, including the island's only sand beach, the tallest headlands on the nation's eastern coast, long narrow lakes or "ponds" scoured by glaciers in centuries past, and climbs the shoulder of the highest mountain (from which the Cadillac Mountain Road leads to the summit). The motor roads were first proposed in the early 1920s by industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who at the time was constructing a major carriage road network on the island. Rockefeller sought to provide motorists with an opportunity to visit the park without making demands to use his beloved carriage paths, and he funded several segments of the Park Loop Road, including the old "Mountain Road" along Eagle Lake and Jordan Road, and the popular seaside sections, the Ocean Drive and Otter Cliffs segments. The road was completed in a collaborative effort between Rockefeller, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Public Roads.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N326
Survey number: HAER ME-11
Building/structure dates: 1923-1958 Initial Construction