BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 17, 2024
Katahdin area residents’ attitudes have softened in the two decades or so since Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby began buying land next to Baxter State Park and eventually donating it to the National Park Service for what became the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. When Quimby first announced her plans, local sportsmen, timber workers and even some state and federal lawmakers opposed the endeavor. Visitor tallies to the national monument quadrupled in 2017 now topping 40,000 annually. Those numbers, along with the recent construction of a 7,900-square-foot visitor center atop Lookout Mountain, have led many in the region to say the more than 87,000-acre monument is bringing a much needed economic boost to the area.