Summer Rusticators, the Tourist Trade and the Waukeag House Hote
With the help of steamship & train travel in the late 1800s, summer tourism peaked. But within a few short decades, the age of the auto and better roads to Bar Harbor - plus closing mines and quarries - led to decades of gradual economic decline and population loss for Sullivan.
Steamships ferried passengers between trains - to and from Boston, New York, Portland, Bar Harbor and points DownEast.
The Waukeag House [1877-1900] was located just to your left
"Waukeag House is a fine summer Hotel, containing 60 rooms, furnished in good style...and kept in a first class manner...with spacious piazzas 650 feet around the hotel, and running water..." - The Mining Journal
On the rebound in the 21st century
Spurred by demand for summer residences and regional growth, the local economy is rebounding once again.
The Sullivan Harbor Land Company hoped to subdivide and develop this area - declaring to visitors "the necessity of coming here instead of Bar Harbor." However, the Company ran into financial difficulties in 1895 and their plans evaporated.
Marker is on U.S. 1 near Benvenuto Avenue, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
