User:Tturn/Cadillac Mountain

Cadillac Mountain was originally inhabited by the Wabanaki People or the "People of the Dawn Land." The Wabanaki consist of four tribes: Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot. Mount Desert Island provided the Wabanaki with a place to meet, trade, fish, and hunt. Before its name Green Mountain, the natives referred to the mountain as Pesamkuk. In the 1500s, the natives were confronted with European colonization; however, they withstood the confrontation and continue to inhabit the land today.

Before being renamed in 1918, the mountain had been called Green Mountain. The new name honors the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac. In 1688, De la Mothe requested and received from the Governor of New France a parcel of land in an area known as Donaquec which included part of the Donaquec River (now the Union River) and the island of Mount Desert in the present-day U.S. state of Maine. Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, a shameless self-promoter who had already appropriated the "de la Mothe" portion of his name from a local nobleman in his native Picardy, thereafter referred to himself as Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, Donaquec, and Mount Desert.

The summit also played a significant role during World War II as a base for early-warning warcraft detection. The mountain's height and location made it the ideal place for a radar facility to achieve strong signals. Today the mountain continues to be used for communication by the police, National Park Service, Coast Guard, and fire department.