The signs in Bar Harbor point to Acadia National Park, and the signs in the national park point to Bar Harbor. The two co-exist — and even merge in certain locations on Mount Desert Island.

Ironically, the summer folk who built cottages on Mount Desert Island and created an island society not matched in the late 20th century provided money and insight to preserve the island’s natural beauty. Led by George Dorr, later called the “father of Acadia National Park,” wealthy philanthropists slowly acquired the land that became the national park.

Some parcels were initially donated by summer residents. The Beehive came first, donated in 1908, to be followed by other scenic sites. Some, like Sieur de Monts Spring, almost got away.

Dorr did not know that the spring, bubbling on land owned by Fountain and Serenus Rodick, existed. He learned about it after two MDI residents decided to bottle the spring water and attempted to buy the land.

The investors started to build a pump house, but ran out of money. Knowing the Rodick family still wanted to sell the spring, Dorr inquired as to the price. He was told $5,000.

Dorr gained first refusal on the property, “and there the matter rested,” he wrote. “There seemed to be no need for haste.”

In a United States that craved bottled spring water, Sieur de Monts could not go long undeveloped. One morning in spring 1909, Dorr was working near a road when a friend, Harry Lynam, suddenly appeared, driving a two-horse team and carriage.

He warned Dorr that several Bar Harbor businessmen had assembled the cash to buy the spring. They knew Dorr sought to incorporate the site in a proposed national monument; opposed to the idea, they only waited for Dorr’s option to expire at 12 noon that day.

“Cash in hand, they are waiting by the clock on the village green till noon shall come to make the purchase,” Lynam informed Dorr. “What will you do?”

“There was but a scant 15 minutes left in which to reach the Village Green, a mile or more away,” Dorr recalled. “There was no time to spare. I made up my mind on the spot to take the option.”

Dorr asked Lynam to ride into Bar Harbor and inform the businessmen that he (Dorr) would exercise his option to buy the spring. Lynam furiously drove his team into town, arriving “with but two or three minutes to spare,” Dorr would recall. His news evoked `anger and hot words” from the businessmen, “but the spring was mine, and became, as it proved, one of the foundation stones on which the future park was built.”

Working with the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservation, a group dedicated to preserving MDI, Dorr acquired some 5,000 acres by 1912. Two years later, he proposed to Congress that the land become a national monument, which occurred on July 16, 1916.

Initially called Sieur de Monts National Monument, the MDI land was renamed Lafayette National Park on Feb. 26, 1919. That name stuck until Jan. 19, 1929, when the park was renamed Acadia.

Many people helped to create the park and improve it. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated about 10,700 acres to the park, including the shoreline from Sand Beach south to Otter Cliffs, and also built some 50 miles of carriage roads in the park or along its boundaries.

Today, Acadia National Park occupies land on MDI, Schoodic Point, and Isle Au Haut. The park spreads across much of Bar Harbor, whose political boundaries interdict the northern part of MDI. Major attractions such as Sand Beach, Great Head, Thunder Hole, Otter Point, Cadillac and Dorr Mountains, most carriage roads, and Witch Hole Pond lie within Bar Harbor, reinforcing the town’s claim that while a municipality, it’s also part of a national park.

Bar Harbor serves as the stopping point for most visitors headed into the park. With its overnight accommodations, restaurants, and stores, the town has become an integral part of Acadia, so much so that when people say “Bar Harbor,” they think “Acadia,” and when they say “Acadia,” they often mean “Bar Harbor.”

— Brian Swartz