Local resident George Washington Brown founded the Suburban Realty Company to develop and market this neighborhood development along the Portland and Cape Elizabeth Railway electric trolley route, which offered convenient access to downtown Portland about five miles away. In 1900 Brown hired civil engineer and surveyor Charles Fenn to lay out the property. Fenn created fifty lots on roads that either curved to echo existing topography or were laid out perpendicular to the shoreline, taking advantage of views to Casco Bay from the uphill streets. Street nomenclature adopted scenic names such as Ocean View, Island View, Forest, Summit, and High Ridge. Brown marketed the development’s scenic views by boasting that one could see the White Mountains from its highest elevation. He built an observation tower 165 feet above sea level for a view of the mountains and bay, but it was removed after the Coast Guard declared its electric beacon a navigational menace.
By the time the street railway was removed in the 1920s, convenient automobile access to Portland over the newly-built Million Dollar Bridge stimulated more subdivision development nearby. Today Mountain View Park retains its historic character with its narrow streets (not widened to accommodate automobiles), mature shade trees, and a mix of architectural styles including Arts and Crafts bungalows and Colonial Revival and Shingle-style homes.
