Historic features found along the old paths
Cellar holes, stone walls, steps, bridges, quarries, mill dams, cemeteries and boundary markers, each recorded with a handheld GPS and a note written on the spot. Search them, filter by type or area, and open any one on the Atlas.
Types are assigned automatically from the GPS symbol and the words in each field note, so a few points may sit under the wrong heading. Route and mapping notes are left out; natural landmarks such as caves and overlooks can be shown with the switch below.
Talks and presentations
Recorded lectures on the history of Mount Desert Island.
Lectures by Terese Miller
Recorded history talks by the Mount Desert Island historian and guide: the women of Acadia, Bar Harbor's pest houses, Bar Island, the island's mills, the Quiet Side's sardine canneries and the Heath family of Seal Cove.
See the program →
The Island's Log: Talks by Anna Durand
Recorded talks on Mount Desert's seafaring past: the island's sea captains and shipbuilders, its nineteenth-century foodways, and the schooner trade with the slavery-based West Indies.
See the talks →Stories from the East Side
Bar Harbor, the Cadillac and Champlain mountains and the lands burned in 1947.
After the Fire of ’47
How one October remade Acadia: the Park Service's day-by-day burn map laid over the Atlas trails, what the fire destroyed in the park, the cleanup roads and firebreaks still in the woods, and the birch and aspen forest that grew back.
Read the story →
The Bar Harbor Water Company
From a typhoid outbreak in 1873 to the land that became Acadia National Park: the stone tower, dams, filters and tanks between Eagle Lake and the village, with old photographs and a map of every point.
Read the story →
From Golden Age to Lost Remains
The Archbold and Rowell estates on Cleftstone Road: Anne Archbold's 1904 Italian villa and the Rowells' Barberry Ledge, from the 1902 deeds to the 1947 fire and the park, with fountains, foundations and boundary stones found in 2009 and the old paths of Great Hill.
Read the story →
The Pest Houses of Bar Harbor
Three isolation hospitals between 1895 and 1947, found again from deeds and old newspapers: foundations, a well, enamel pots and buckets, with a map of every point.
Read the story →
Reaching the Summit: Green Mountain
Every way to the top, from the 1853 surveyors' track, the buckboard toll road and the cog railway to the 1931 motor road, the WWII radar station and today's vehicle reservation, with the Pot Holes, the Featherbed and Frenchmen's Camp.
Read the story →
The Underwater Trail of Lake Wood and the Forgotten Bridge
On the west shore of Lake Wood an old stone path runs into the water below a granite cliff. At the outlet, Beatrix Farrand's 1929 Kane–Bridgham memorial bridge has vanished under brush and a beaver dam. Crew photos from 2010 to 2025, the inscription stone and a map of every point.
Read the story →Stories from the West Side
The Quiet Side: Western Mountain, Seal Cove and Tremont.
The Norwoods and Kelleys of Seal Cove Road
Farms below Oak Hill in Tremont, from Benjamin Norwood's 1828 deed to the 1937 sale to the park: cellar holes, deep stone-lined wells, field walls, the Kelley Cemetery and Mary Norwood's 1846 headstone, with the deed chain and a map of every point.
Read the story →
Picnic on the Quiet Side: Pine Hill and Oak Hill
Two CCC picnic grounds in Tremont, 1.85 miles apart, built in 1937 and drawn on Benjamin Breeze's 1941 master plan, then abandoned: loop roads, stone fireplaces with their grates, steps, shelter platforms and a toilet building, with LiDAR and a map of every point.
Read the story →Across the whole island
Research that covers Mount Desert from end to end.
Flora of Mount Desert Island, 1894, Mapped
Every station in Rand and Redfield's 1894 Flora, all 1,521 entries, placed on Rand's 1893 map and the modern topo. Rare plants, common plants, and mosses, lichens and seaweeds, with today's names and a place index. Many stations lie on the old paths in the Atlas.
Read the guide (PDF) →| Photo | Feature & field note | Type | Area | Date | Map |
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Many of these features stand on private land or in places the park asks hikers to avoid. Please read Walk lightly before setting out, and leave everything where you find it.