Georgia’s Jewel

I know I just wrote a “how we be” letter, but our current stop on
Jekyll Island these past five days is just so great, we want to share
it. If we were inclined to settle some place, this is the first place
that has appealed to us enough to consider.

Jekyll Island, called “Georgia’s Jewel,” was given to a guy named
Horton, by his Commander, James Oglethorpe, leader of the Georgia
colony. Oglethorpe named it after a friend back in England. The last
known slave ship stopped at Jekyll Island in the 1850s. Historic
remains are built of tabby, a combination of crushed oyster shells
(taken from middens, or piles of shells left by Indians), sand, lime
and water – early day cement.

Jekyll Island came into its own in the late 1800s when a group of 53
industrial giants bought it from Horton heirs for $125,000. They used
it as a club for hunting, stocking the island with deer and turkeys,
and building a huge clubhouse and eventually, individual 20-room
“cottages.” The clubhouse is still being used as a hotel, with 157
rooms (averaging $200/day) and 13 of the original 60 some cottages now
house museums, art guild, book store, etc. Familiar names mark cottage
locations: DuPont, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Furness, Gould,
Carnegie. One leg of the first transcontinental phone call was made
from Jekyll Island when the president of AT&T hurt himself and had to
do his part in Bell’s experiment from here. The tycoons took the train
to Brunswick (private cars, of coure), roughly 70 miles south of
Savannah, then took a ferry to Jekyll. Or they arrived on their yachts.
A secret meeting called by Nelson Aldrich in 1912 culminated in the
Federal Reserve Act and could well have determined the presidency of
Woodrow Wilson.

That transcontinental phone call in 1915 was an omen. As communication
increased, the world infringed on the privacy of the privileged class
cavorting on Georgia’s jewel. And, wouldn’t you know, their pampered
offspring found it boring, not enough action. So Jekyll Island slept
through the roaring 20s and 30s until a farsighted Georgia governor
bought the island from the consortium for $675,000 in 1947.

The Jekyll Island State Park Authority was created in 1950 to make it
self-sustaining and “to make island facilities available to people of
“average income.” Island beaches were the first in the south to open
up to Blacks. A causeway from the mainland was built in the 50s. Riding
around the island today we see brick ranch style houses, nice, but far
from fancy. The Methodists, Catholics and Episcopalians share a church
(the Baptists need their own).

The island is not part of the State Park system in Georgia, but
supported solely by private funding, donations and a $3.00 island
“parking fee.” It is a designated national historic site. So far it has
resisted the high priced condos, strip malls and Wal-Mart, hence it is
beautiful and unspoiled.

This country has a lot of water. For a person who has a slight bridge
phobia, travel creates a little anxiety. There is a bridge going into
Brunswick I’ll remember for a while; fortunately we didn’t have to take
the Bird to Brunswick.

We were not close to the devastating tornadoes that hit Florida a few
days ago. Well, I guess we were a little close, because our weather
alarm radio went off with a tornado watch (not a warning). The alarm is
startling, but we’re really glad we have it. This is not the first time
it has gone off.

Yesterday I walked down to the fishing pier and watched the dolphins
play around the pilings, and gawked at a HUGE cruise ship that steamed
through the intracoastal waterway. Everything is very green and the
dogwood is blooming. We leave soon for Douglas, GA to work the General
Coffee State Park. You may remember General Coffee Park as home to the
Indigo Snake and Gary Gopher Turtle, and a rural area where sales
rejection is covered by “Ah’ll have to puh-lahtly declahn, Miiss
Say-em, but thaink y’all ver-uh much.” (Now that I think about it,
there probably isn’t a place in Georgia that is pretty enough to get us
to live here, but it is mah-ty pleazin’ tuh vizit.)

Warm wishes to you all,

Sam