History of Hulls Cove Visitor Center

Pavilion entrance welcomes visitors before Hulls Cove Visitor Center

Photo by Ashley L. Conti, Friends of Acadia, NPS

Have you ever stopped at a visitor center? Did you talk to a park ranger? Watch the park movie? What was your experience like?

Visitor centers are often the first place people go before exploring a national park. It is there people begin to make their connections to these important and protected places across the United States. Visitor centers reflect the National Park Service’s mission to both preserve these places and access for the enjoyment of future generations. For most of Acadia National Park's over 4 million annual visitors, Hulls Cove Visitor Center is the first place they are introduced to the park, Mount Desert Island’s natural scenery, and all the opportunities for learning and recreation.

52 steps were built leading up to Hulls Cove Visitor Center

Courtesy National Park Service, Acadia National Park

Mission 66

Hulls Cove Visitor Center was built and funded as part of the National Park Service’s Mission 66, a ten-year program to expand visitor services in preparation for the agency’s centennial. It was planned and designed in the early 1960s with an architectural design like other Mission 66 facilitates at national parks. The building was completed and opened in December 1968. That following summer, visitors were welcomed to it by walking up the fifty-two steps and looking out through the large bay windows to views of Frenchman Bay and the ocean.

Hulls Cove Visitor Center, a familiar place for many, represents the change Acadia has witnessed in the last three decades. Where can one see clues of this change? The first clue is the 52 steps up to the physical building. These steps may seem unnecessary, since the building could have been built at the parking lot level. The next clue is the large bay windows; the first thing you see when walking into the lobby. The view through them is only the tops of a few birch trees. These clues show the changing landscape around the visitor center.

Decades of vegetation growth obstruct views from Hulls Cove Visitor Center

Photo by Ashley L. Conti, Friends of Acadia, NPS

A Changing Landscape

When construction was complete, the stairs made sense because they provided visitors a view of the surroundings, just as the large bay windows provide within the building itself. What has changed since then? The most obvious answer is the surrounding landscape around the Hulls Cove Visitor Center.

Since its opening in 1969, the mixed forest has grown, and mature trees block the view shed of Frenchmen Bay. The building itself has slightly changed over time, both inside and out. It was previously an administrative park headquarters and later transitioned to just a visitor center.

Lastly, the park itself has changed since the opening of the visitor center. For the last two decades, the dramatic increase in visitation has significantly altered the visitor experience. When the visitor center was designed and built, Acadia hosted just under 2 million visitors a year. In 2018, visitation reached 3.5 million. In response to this change, Acadia has compiled a transportation management plan to guide future planning efforts. This includes plans to relocate and construct a new large and updated visitor center.

Do you have any memories of the Hulls Cove Visitor Center? Perhaps you can recall a once familiar place in your hometown that is no longer there.

Hulls Cove Visitor Center has been a familiar place for many visitors and is a reminder of their first memories of Acadia. It was built out of a National Park Service wide program to expand visitor services and is a representation of Acadia’s change over the past half a century. Although familiar places can bring on feelings of nostalgia that are not easy to let go of, they are worth remembering.