Seawall Campground is a campground in

Acadia National Park Acadia National Park is an American national park located along the mid-section of the Maine coast, southwest of Bar Harbor. The park preserves about half of Mount Desert Island, part of the Isle au Haut, the tip of the Schoodic Peninsula, and ...

Mount Desert Island Mount Desert Island (MDI; french: Île des Monts Déserts) in Hancock County, Maine, is the largest island off the coast of Maine. With an area of it is the 52nd-largest island in the United States, the sixth-largest island in the contiguous ...

off the coast of

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 ...

. The campground offers four loops of campsites, including "drive-up" sites suitable for RVs and trailers, as well as walk-in tent-only campsites, and is open from late May into October. Much of the campground was built between 1936 and 1942 by crews of the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

; this section is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The campground is located in the village of Seawall, in the town of

Southwest Harbor Southwest Harbor is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. Located on Mount Desert Island, the population was 1,756 at the 2020 census. The municipality contains within it the villages of Southwest Harbor, Manset, Seawall, Wonderland, ...

on Maine State Route 102A.

Description and history

The Seawall Campground is located on of parkland near the southern end of the western lobe of

, in a portion of

that is separated from the largest portion, which is on the island's eastern lobe. It is on the north side of Route 102A, the main loop road around the coast of that part of the island. The entrance road leads north to the checkin station, north of which four loops of campsites branch. Other public facilities include comfort stations with toilets and hot showers, and an amphitheater, while service facilities including park staff housing and other utility buildings. Acadia National Park was established in 1916 as a National Monument and was designated a national park in 1919, the first in the United States park system located east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. The first master plan for the park, published in 1927, included a call for campgrounds, but funding did not become available until the jobs programs of the 1930s. In 1935 the site of Seawall Campground was chosen, and construction began in 1936 by

crews funded by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. Loops A and B were the first to be built, using the park service's principles of Rustic design. They were completed by the end of season in 1937, except for the comfort station in Loop B, which was built in a subsequent season. Work continued on Loop C and the checkin/ranger station, but progress on these was delayed by US entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and they were not finished until 1942. Loop D, which consists of walk-in tent campsites, and the amphitheater were built in the 1950s as part of a "Mission 66" program by the park service to expand facilities ahead of its fiftieth anniversary in 1966.

References

External links

Camping at Acadia National Park
{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Acadia National Park Buildings and structures completed in 1942 Campgrounds in Maine Buildings and structures in Hancock County, Maine Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine 1942 establishments in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Hancock County, Maine Temporary populated places on the National Register of Historic Places National Park Service Rustic architecture

Description and history

See also

References

External links