Katahdin area residents’ attitudes have softened in the two decades or so since Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby began buying large swaths of land next to Baxter State Park and eventually donated it to the National Park Service for what became the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. When Quimby first announced her plans to donate the land in northern Penobscot County to the park service, local sportsmen , timber workers and even some state and federal lawmakers opposed the endeavor. In the years leading up to the national monument’s creation in 2016, some in the area were not convinced of its benefit to the region.
Despite positive economic forecasts from a 2013 impact study by a Montana firm, along with endorsements from more than 13,000 Mainers, the proposal remained contentious. Attitudes began to change when global visitor tallies to the national monument quadrupled in 2017. Visits now top 40,000 annually, according to the parks service.
Those numbers, along with the recent construction of a 7,900-square-foot visitor center atop Lookout Mountain, have led many in the region to say the more than 87,000-acre monument is bringing a much needed economic boost to the area. This weekend, registered visitors will get a first peek at the contact station, as the visitor center is known, which is now in the final stages of construction. Members of the public can register to visit Saturday or Sunday through the Friends of Katahdin Woods and Waters’ website .
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