The 1947 Fire That Remade Bar Harbor

October 1947. A fire from a cranberry bog burned for ten days. 17,000 acres. 67 of Bar Harbor's grandest summer estates. The millionaires who built their cottages on the hillsides — Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Morgans — watched their mansions burn from boats in the harbor.

The estates were never rebuilt. The families didn't come back. The land was donated to Acadia or sold cheap. The island's economy shifted from serving the ultra-wealthy to serving everyone. The National Park gained thousands of acres of estate land and became the democratic institution it is today.

The fire also reshaped the forest. Old-growth spruce and fir replaced by birch, aspen, and maple — pioneer species that colonize burned ground. The famous fall foliage that draws visitors to Acadia every October exists because of the 1947 fire. The deciduous forest tourists photograph is the scar tissue of a catastrophe, and it's beautiful. The Bar Harbor Historical Society on Ledgelawn Avenue has before-and-after photos. Sixty-room mansions reduced to lone chimneys in ash fields.