Conserving a Vision: Acadia, Katahdin, and the Pathway from Private Lands to Park Lands

Abstract

Although a century separates the official designations, the strategies required to ensure federal protection of Maine’s two National Park Service areas — Acadia National Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument — closely track one another. In both cases, a handful of enterprising conservationists shared the vision for conservation. Both areas depended on the private acquisition, and donation, of title to the numerous parcels that comprised them before the land could garner federal protection. Politics in the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries had to be overcome. This work tells the stories in parallel, highlighting and analyzing four strands of similarity to not only deepen our understanding of these particular areas in Maine, but also to guide future conservationists aiming to convert privately held land to federally managed and protected land.

Keywords: national park, national monument, public lands, natural resources, antiquities act, Maine, Acadia, Katahdin

JEL Classification: K32, K11