The hidden history of America's first national park east of the Mississippi
Before it was a playground for the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Acadia was a landscape of profound indigenous stewardship and colonial struggle. Discover how a collection of private estates and ancestral Wabanaki territories transformed into a unique American treasure through strategic renaming and strategic donations.
The origins of Acadia National Park are rooted in a complex layering of human history. For at least 12,000 years, the Wabanaki people—including the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot—have inhabited this region. The very name 'Acadia' stems from the Mi'kmaq word 'akadie', meaning 'piece of and land'. This ancestral territory, which includes Mount Desert Island (known to some Wabanaki as Pemetic), saw significant upheaval in the 1620s when introduced diseases like smallpox and influenza reduced indigenous populations by approximately 90 percent.
The park's federal evolution was marked by frequent identity shifts. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson established the Sieur de Monts National Monument. By 1919, it was redesignated as Lafayette National Park. The transition to the current name, Acadia National Park, occurred in 1929. This final renaming was a clever piece of diplomacy: conservationist George B. Dorr suggested the name to facilitate the addition of the Schoodic Peninsula, as the heirs of John Godfrey Moore were Anglophiles who resisted the 'Lafayette' designation.
The landscape itself is a mosaic of geological and architectural feats. The park encompasses 49,075 acres, featuring the granite domes and U-shaped valleys of the Atlantic Coast's tallest mountain, Cadillac Mountain. Interwoven with this natural beauty is a 57-mile carriage road system, much of it financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. While the 19th century brought wealthy families like the Carnegies and Astors to build 'cottages,' the park remains a vital site of Wabanaki culture, where tribal members continue to gather sweetgrass and participate in annual festivals.
Source: Acadia National Park
