Historic Bar Harbor Tourism, 1860s-1970s
Crowds, traffic, and NO VACANCY signs are the familiar modern markers of Bar Harbor's seasonal trade, but historic patterns of tourism reveal how evergreen these problems truly are on MDI. Transportation, accommodations, and wider economic challenges have shaped or reforged Bar Harbor's relationship to tourists over time, demonstrating that the "new" problems we grapple with today mirror Islander dialogues of the past.