Desert of Maine - General Tour

Overview of the History of the Desert of Maine

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Desert of Maine - General Tour

Freeport, Maine 04032, United States

Created By: Desert of Maine

Tour Information

Journey through time to meet the people who have lived on this landscape and discover the forces of nature that created it. From the Wabanaki people, to the 19th century farm family that caused Maine's own little Dust Bowl, to the quirky characters who turned this place into a roadside attraction starting in the 1920s, you'll discover the fascinating ways different people have interacted with the land. We'll also travel even farther back to the time of Maine's last Ice Age to find the answer to how this expanse of sand was created in the first place.


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What You'll See on the Tour

Welcome to the Desert of Maine. We’ve got lots to show you and many stories to tell about the Desert’s history. By the time we’re done, you’ll have traveled through time from the Ice Age to the Civil War to Prohibition era and up th... Read more
After the ice age, after the Wabanaki discovered this area, after Maine was colonized and Freeport was founded, after all of that history... this land was a working, fertile farm owned by the Tuttle family. This would have been from 1821 un... Read more
John and his wife, Abigail Tuttle, both in their 60s, brought along sons Peter and James and their wives Eleanor and Elizabeth, who were themselves sisters. You heard that right. Two brothers from one family married two sisters from another... Read more
It must have been very exciting to come visit here in the early 1900s when the dunes were still in the process of forming. And people did visit! Locals called it the Sand Farm and one frequent visitor, Geraldine Coffin Brown, remembers comi... Read more
So, we’ve already covered the Tuttles—sorry, not sorry, about these sand puns!—but there are a few other characters that were important to the Desert’s history. The first is Henry Goldrup, an enterprising young man and something of ... Read more
Our friend Henry Goldrup, the original owner of the Desert of Maine, was the one to notice a natural spring that flowed from the sand near here. Considering the aquifer beneath the surface at the Desert of Maine, it is likely that more of t... Read more
We’re standing on what used to be the Tuttles’ pasturelands. If you look closely, you might still see some sheep out there…   Even though this isn’t a true desert, it sure looks like one. So, how did it come to be? The short answer... Read more
Picture this if you can: 27,000 years ago, what scientists call the “Laurentide Ice Sheet” covered the entire state of Maine. In fact, it stretched from Canada all the way to Cape Cod. But what exactly does an ice sheet have to do with ... Read more
One-hundred years ago, these woods were still “desert” sand. In fact, the sand covered six times the area that they do now. Before that they were farmland, but each of our families that lived here enjoyed a surrounding forest. The Tuttl... Read more
Now here’s the surprise I promised you would see. This is a genuine Model-T Ford, the same type of car you would have found driving up the newly built Route 1 on your way up to the Desert in the 1920s and 30s. As this place started to get... Read more
A vernal pool is a seasonal pool of water that provides habitat for distinctive plants and animals. They are called “vernal” (meaning of or relating to spring) because they are often at the highest depth during the spring months. Becaus... Read more
In the early marketing and media coverage of the Desert of Maine, there were vast exaggerations of how much sand was exposed. Some brochures said there were 300 or even 500 acres of sand, and almost everyone who talked about the Desert omin... Read more
In the early marketing and media coverage of the Desert of Maine, there were vast exaggerations of how much sand was exposed. Some brochures said there were 300 or even 500 acres of sand, and almost everyone who talked about the Desert omin... Read more

 

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