Mount Desert and Penobscot Bay Real Estate Company

Real estate development for summer residents and tourists started in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as steamboats made travel from Boston easy. For the Penobscot bound, overnight boats from Boston stopped in Rockland by dawn after leaving Boston in the evening and were in Bangor by mid day. From the major Penobscot towns of the western shore, travelers transferred to smaller steamers for Mount Desert and smaller towns and islands.

Developers saw opportunity, bought land and divided it into often very small lots which might have camps or small houses. Bayside in Northport is a fine example of such a development. Here the Mount Desert and Penobscot Bay Real Estate Company advertises the delights of Sabbath Day Harbor on the east side of Islesboro. The steamer Cimbria built in 1882, which sailed the Bangor-Mount Desert Route, would transport Bangor vacationers.

Summer colonists were often all from the same city; in the case of Isleboro, the north end was Bangor; the south end was dominated by wealthy New York summer cottagers.