Bates Memorial Tablet on Cadillac Trail, Mt. Desert Island, Me 509 8-19-14-28

Bates Memorial Tablet on Cadillac Trail, Mt. Desert Island, Me 509 8-19-14-28

"Bates Memorial Tablet on the Gorham Mountain Trail near the junction with the Cadillac Cliffs Path. Mt. Desert Island, Me 509 8-19-14-28" Bates Memorial, Cadillac Trail, Rocks, Trees Waldron Bates, Pathmaker Acadia National Park's memorials to people whose vision, work, and support shaped Acadia National Park include plaques, inscriptions on rocks, and named trails. This bronze plaque honors Waldron Bates, Pathmaker, a skilled and prolific trail designer. It is at the intersection of the Gorham Mountain Trail and the Cadillac Cliffs Path, one of the best examples of Bates' engineering skills. Bates is also memorialized throughout Acadia by stone cairns of his design, reintroduced in 2001. Bates, a young Boston lawyer, first came to Mount Desert Island in the 1880s. He never married but found his true love in the island's mountains and his calling as a mapmaker and path designer. He co-produced a trail map of Mount Desert Island in 1896. He planned and engineered trails across and around interesting rocks and terrain, wrote instructions about how to construct safe and durable trails, and he developed a signage system and distinctive cairns for marking trails. He died in a tragic accident on a train trip in 1909. One eulogy stated, "To him, more than any other is owed the great system of some one hundred and fifty miles of paths, which are so complete as to make difficult at present any additions of value."