Sunday, November 15, 2009

Rockefeller's Bridges.....

On Mt. Dessert Island, the history of the wealthy lives on, in the now Acadia National Park. In Maine, the Rockefeller's had purchased most of an island along the ocean shoreline. As I researched this to get my facts straight, the web says that  others hung around and owned property along the coast, and their names were Morgan, Ford and Vanderbilt. To show off his island to his many guests, Mr. Rockefeller built carriage trails and bridges, in order to give his guest carriage rides around the property. Eventually the Rockefeller's donated the property to the government for a national park. When you own so much it is hard to liquidate it.





We hiked up to see two of the bridges and I think that they were build just alike structurally. They are amazing bridges made from stone.





At the corners of each sides of the bridge are these round towers, four of them, that go from top to the bottom of the of the side of the bridge.  They are amazing designed and the craftsmanship is wonderful. I am sure he hired a crew to come in from overseas to build these bridges.  There are many of them all over island.  Oh yes they had to build the roads at the same time into the hills of this island.





At first when you read this, you think it says 1994, but no it actually is the date of 1924.





Look to the far side of the bridge and you can see the circular tower of stone that I described from it's top view.





It was  beautiful on the day that we hiked up to these bridges.  My youngest son, the one in the black shirt, was our guide. He loves this area and interned here in this park a few years earlier. He and his new wife live near here seven miles or so.  Others in the picture are my oldest son's wife, in orange, and my dear wife light blue on the right.


 


Another back view of people, the photo shows you actually how beautiful it is in this area.  My oldest son is on the left, youngest son in same black shirt, and Patricia, my oldest son's wife. Their faces are actually posted on the sides of this blog.
I have found that the summer gave me a lot of photos that I just haven't begun to edit and share.  I think it will be fun to jump back to the summer as we start to watch the snow to blow around here.
Thanks for reading....

3 comments:

Alan Burnett said...

Larry. Your posts are always so interesting. As you know I have been on "shopping duty" for the last few days and I have not had time to catch up on all my Blog reading. However I have now seen the post from a couple of days ago and your splendid pictures. Thank you for responding to my request to see some of your work. It was worth waiting for. There is a strength and a solidity to it which I always associate with your writing and work.

Ezhilan said...

It's interesting to see an old stone bridge in a nice location.

The Retired One said...

Those bridges are pretty amazing when you think of their age...and that they had to haul the stones up through rough, undeveloped country!
I would love to visit that National park some day.