Acadia National Park United States

Legendary

The first national park east of the Mississippi River and the only one in the northeastern United States.

Photo by laredawg

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The Wabanaki people lived on Mount Desert Island for roughly 12,000 years before European explorers arrived. French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed past in 1604 and named the island "Isle des Monts Déserts" for its bare granite peaks. He was the first European to map the coastline here, and his name for the island stuck for centuries.

Woodrow Wilson designated the area Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, the first national park land east of the Mississippi. It was renamed Lafayette National Park in 1919 and finally became Acadia National Park in 1929, the name borrowed from a French colonial term for the region.

Acadia almost didn't survive the 20th century in the shape we know it. In 1947, a wildfire burned more than 17,000 acres of the island, wiping out much of the old spruce and fir forest. The trees that grew back were different, and the landscape shifted permanently.

DDT nearly erased the peregrine falcon from the park entirely. By the 1960s they were gone. Conservation efforts slowly brought them back, and in 1991 peregrine falcons successfully nested in Acadia for the first time in decades.

Drive the 27-mile Park Loop Road past Thunder Hole, where Atlantic waves compress into a narrow channel and boom loud enough to feel it in your chest. Hike the Beehive Trail up iron rung ladders bolted into bare granite cliffs, with views of Sand Beach and the open ocean below. 

Catch sunrise from the summit of Cadillac Mountain, the first place in the U.S. to see the sun from October through March. Jordan Pond House has been serving popovers and tea on the lawn since the 1890s.