Rockefeller's Roads
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Wed 20 Jul 2011 16:51
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John D. Rockefeller Jr (d.1960, aged 86) was a
philanthropist who gave away hundreds of millions of dollars. His fortune came
originally from Standard Oil started by his father, but the family moved into
banking an real estate (hence the Rockefeller Centre in New York). It was
Rockefeller Jr who bought and then donated the land upon which the UN stands in
New York. He was a major benefactor of the US National Parks, including Acadia
which occupies a large chunk of Mount Desert Island.
Rockefeller had a summer home on MDI, and a love of
horse-drawn carriages. Between 1913 & 1940 he built 45 miles of carriageways
on the island on land he then donated to the Park. The result is a truly
wonderful network of broken-stone carriage roads, now the best remaining
examples in the USA. The technique is essentially exactly like that used by the
Romans in Europe two thousand years ago. Rockefeller was intimately connected
with all aspects of the design and construction, blending the roads harmoniously
into the landscape by clever routeing and use of entirely local
materials.
Nowadays their major use is for cycling and
walking.The National Park Service has organised a free (propane
powered!) bus network throughout the island with cycle carriers front and
rear so the roads are very accessible and therefore well used. They twist and
wind though the Park forest and beside the lakes, and because they were designed
for horses the gradients are never too severe. Wonderful
And so here is Alison using them
 One can still travel by carriage
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