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Acadia National Park
Where the mountains meet the sea in Maine
Acadia National Park, established in 1919 on the rugged coast of Maine, protects a landscape where granite mountains meet the Atlantic Ocean. Centered on Mount Desert Island, it preserves rocky headlands, cobble beaches, spruce forest, and the bald granite summit of Cadillac Mountain — at 1,530 feet the highest point on the U.S. Atlantic coast, and one of the first places in the country to catch the sunrise.
The park was assembled from land donated by wealthy summer residents, the first national park east of the Mississippi created largely from private gifts. Its carriage roads, built by John D. Rockefeller Jr., thread the interior, while the surf-battered shore and offshore islands draw nearly four million visitors a year to one of the most popular and most scenic stretches of the New England coast.