MOUNT DESERT ISLANDER • April 14, 2022
Historic hiking trails in Acadia and surrounding communities – about 117 miles of them – were added last Friday to the National Register of Historic Places, which is administered by the National Park Service. The trails, are officially listed as the Mount Desert Island Hiking Trail System. Several factors make the trails historically significant and worthy of preservation. Some of them began as paths taken by mid-19th century American landscape painters. Some early trails were built by village improvement societies on MDI. Some of the park’s trails were built by laborers in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal work relief program in the 1930s and early 1940s.