Grant Park is an oceanside

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to resi ...

Bar Harbor Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire i ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

, United States. It is located about halfway along the town's mile-long

Shore Path The Shore Path is a coastal path in Bar Harbor, Maine, United States. Established in 1881, it runs along the shore of Frenchman Bay, from Ells Pier, beside Agamont Park, in the north to an east–west-running continuation of the path at the easte ...

, overlooking

Frenchman Bay Frenchman Bay is a bay in Hancock County, Maine, named for Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who visited the area in 1604. Frenchman Bay may have been the location of the Jesuit St. Sauveur mission, established in 1613. In a 1960 book ...

. Balance Rock, deposited during an

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

, is located on the shore beside the path."Balance Rock along Shore Path, Bar Harbor, ca. 1939"
– Maine Memory The park is named for Harry Allen Grant Jr. (1836–1898),''Our Grant Family History''
– Mark Grant, p. 39 who built the second summer cottage in Bar Harbor in 1869 (after Alpheus Hardy's cottage the previous year). Grant was an attorney from

Tarrytown Tarrytown is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson Rive ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He paid $400 for the lot, and had constructed a tennis court. It occupied the grassed area between today's parking lot and the Shore Path. In 1912, fourteen years after Grant's death, his widow, Julia Schoonmaker Grant, sold the property to a syndicate of local men who subsequently sold it to the Town of Bar Harbor. The Bar Harbor Village Improvement Association took the park into its care, and had Grant's house moved to another part of town. The park was renovated in 2017, with the addition of a paved area with benches.Public Parks
- Town of Bar Harbor, Maine

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Bar Harbor, Maine Parks in Bar Harbor, Maine Urban public parks