Sidebar 5: The Unintended Consequences of Dredging Waterways Around Jekyll Island
The On-Going Movement to Upscale
The Georgia State Ownership Era, Part I: 1947 to 1980Main Body of Segment 3, Part I
Main Body Index
The Jekyll Island Club’s Closure & State Acquisition[Link]
The Jekyll Island Club Hotel and Events in the Early State Era[Link]
A Deeper Dive Into The State-Owned Era: 1947 to 1980[Link]
Viewing Suggestions & Recommendations
Scaling: Given the WordPress typefaces, type size and formatting — never mind the length and all of the images — my compilations are best viewed on a larger desktop computer flat screen monitor, with perhaps a zoom setting of 110% or 125%, as it will make it much easier to read, especially for the current year values in superscript that follow then-year dollar amounts.
Hyperlinks:You’ll find hyperlinked text in the various tables of contents for the main headings and sidebars that can be used to ‘jump to them’ vs. trying to scroll to them. You’ll also note the major section headings in each table and sub-table of contents that appear in blue text are also hyperlinked. And, throughout the ‘document’ you’ll find typically blue hyperlinks that can be used to jump-back to the tables of contents and indexes to speed-up navigating forward and backward in the document.
Like all hyperlinks, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the blue colored text, and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to that section of the document.
Links to Other Internet Sites: You will also sometimes find Blue Bolded and Underscoredarticle names or other outside sources that I have mentioned inside the body of a paragraph or in “Notes” that indicates they are links to that article or source. Once again, like other hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover‘ over the blue colored text and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to a new window with that source.
Images: In many cases, unless it’s obvious from the accompanying text what an image is related to, I have usually used bolded text in the body of the document next to the image that helps explain it. And, to make the images easier to see, I’ve done my best to ensure a larger and scalable image of every embedded image in my compilations can be opened with a click in a new window to provide far-greater detail, from which you can further increase its size using the scaling features on your computer or digital device. As it is for hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover‘ over the image and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it and the image will open in a new window.
Sources
I will note, given other demands on my time and the overwhelming details I learned about the State Owned Era — especially from Nick Doms exceptional and highly-detailed book, From Millionaires to Commoners, The History of Jekyll Island State Park— I struggled with this segment on the State Era and took an 8-month break beginning in the Fall of 2023. It was not until August 2024 that I resumed work, only to find once again there was just so much that has occurred —much of it requiring checking and back checking, with quite a bit of discovery in the process — that it once again began to consume far more time that I had envisioned. I began a second break between the winter of 2024 and summer 2025 that has further delayed completion of the State Owned Era segment(s).
However, I would be remiss if I did not clearly state I borrowed heavily from the following invaluable sources to create this personal blog entry, to which I have referred over and over again..
My compilation of historic information and images is something I enjoy doing as purely a hobby, if only because like most well-documented research papers — as we were as students required to produce in high school and college — that committing what I learn to a written and illustrated product, I find it far easier to recall that information.
I especially enjoy having done so when we visit the island and have reason to apply what I’ve learned to things we see or during conversations we have with other folks whom we meet on the island during our visits. The latter often times sends me back to my blog entries to either add additional information, or make corrections based on new information that comes to my attention. And, that is something I deeply appreciate as I’d like to “get it right” instead of merely passing along urban legends and ‘approved‘ history versus the real history of things that interest me.
A Note on Inflation Adjusted Values
I gain a far better appreciation for the cited costs of things in the past when I adjust them to current-year values to help add context to the expense or value of things based on the current, equivalent cost.
However, given the time lag between my Jekyll Island Segments 1 and 2 written in 2023 and Segment 3 written in 2025, and Segment 4 that will be finished in 2026, the State Era Parts I and II use 2025 $’ values. Therefore things such as the $675,000 paid for Jekyll Island by the State of Georgia that was shown as $9,223,047 in 2023 $’s is now reflected as $9,717,919 in 2025 $’s. Of course, the same is true for the ups and downs in inflation and adjusted dollar values between some ‘then years’ driven by economic factors over time, especially when deflation was more common between the 1800’s and 1950’s.
Sidebar 1: How to Eat An Elephant
Yes, there’s a lot of material in my Part I of the Jekyll Island State Era, as you can see just with the table of contents for the Overview that follows. Never mind, my attempts to look at the evolution of the island at a high-level with both illustrated graphics and photographs to add context and color to what is admittedly a fairly long overview.
But, given we’re looking back over the 78-year history of Georgia’s state ownership of Jekyll Island — noting the Jekyll Island Club Era history was only 56-years before closing on 5 April 1942 — there’s a lot of material to cover.
Moreover, in addition to the island’s development under the auspices of the Jekyll Island Authority on behalf of the State of Georgia since 1950, there have been several issues that warrant a closer-look, if only to ensure the same poor decisions– or at least in hindsight, what appear to have been poor decisions — are looked-at and learned-from as “Lessons of History” so they are not repeated in the future.
The Overview & Issues: For some casual readers, perhaps only the Overview is all that may be of interest, as it hopefully provides a high-level view of how Jekyll Island’s landscape has changed during the State Era — literally and figuratively — as the State Park developed the roads, altered the dunes, developed businesses, guest lodging, recreational and convention amenities as well as residential neighborhoods.
Note that the Overview also reaches into the still in-work ‘Part II of the State Era: 1980 to Present’ to touch on the restoration of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, San Souci Apartments and other Historic District structures as well as to some development proposals in the 2008-2009 timeframe that thankfully never came to pass.
The Main Body of Segment 3: If you use the hyperlinks to ‘jump’ to the Table of Contents you’ll find there are actually three sections, each with its own Table of Contents.
The Jekyll Island Club’s Closure & State Acquisition – This may be of value to those who may be interested in my take as to why the Jekyll Island Club closed by 1942 — which can be skipped those who remember it from the Club Era History in Segment 2 — as well as a look at how and why the state used the condemnation process to acquire the island and the political implications for Governor M.E. Thompson’s actions and those of Governor Herman Talmage who followed Thompson and put in place the Jekyll Island Authority Act that created the JIA who — at least as recently as 2009 — was still wresting with the development on the island.
The Jekyll Island Club Hotel and Events in the Early State Era – For those who may want to know more about the early years of the JIA and some of the aforementioned mistakes covered in the Overview & Issues section, as well as other early changes made to the island and it’s initial operation from 5 March 1948 through 10 September 1951, this may be of interest albeit with some repetition from the Overview at State Acquisition section included for context and continuity.
There’s also a little about the funding and construction of the Jekyll Island / Downing E. Musgrove Causeway and the Jekyll Creek lift-bridge, as well as the early building boom on the island, subsequent issues with Senator Jimmy Dykes and why the term “Dykes Island” came about.
Finally, it looks at how the Georgia Historic Sites Survey office in Atlanta was instrumental in putting Jekyll Island’s historic sites and structures on the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark District in the 1970’s as the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and San Souci Apartments fell into disrepair and were closed in 1971, and a look forward at how attorney Vance Hughes and architect Larry Evans essentially ‘saved’ the Jekyll Island Hotel and San Souci from likely demolition, with the help of Leon N. Weiner & Dave Curtis of Leon N. Weiner and Associates, as well as many others.
A Deeper Dive Into The State-Owned Era: 1947 to 1980 – This is for those with a lot of time on their hands who may have enjoyed or learned new things from the previous sections described above that delves deep into the first 33-years of the State Era.
All told, there are 77-sections listed in just this section’s Table of Contents. Therefore, readers can expect to find both new information, as well as seeing information, images and graphics from the previous sections, once again included for context and continuity.
As to the full proverb / metaphor “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time.
As mentioned in my introduction to this series, my wife and I honeymooned at Jekyll Island in July 1993, and spent most of our time in the Historic District. Access to the island was still made by crossing the 1954-era Jekyll Creek lift-bridge, as the current M.E. Thompson memorial bridge wouldn’t be built until three years later in 1996. The beach area at that time consisted of a combination of closed or ‘tired’ hotels & motels built during the 1960’s and 1970’s, as well as an early version of a beach village.
Reference the below image1, for readers who are not familiar with the overall ‘layout’ of Jekyll Island, I decided to start off with this satellite image of the Island. It is one I have used several times with different annotations throughout my State Era Segments to orient readers as to where the places I make mention of are located in relation to each other on seven-mile long and 1.5-mile wide island.
Note 1: As with almost all of the images you’ll find in my compilations, they are hyperlinked such that they can be clicked-on and larger versions of the images will open in a new window that can usually be further enlarged as needed.
Moreover, I use many other closer-up satellite images to accompany my comments, but often times shown with different compass-based orientations, e.g., the above, overall satellite image of the island is shown using a ‘West-Northwest Up’ orientation, if only because it was the ‘best fit’ for the graphics.
In doing-so, as with this overview image, I try to make the point that the “center of the world” on Jekyll Island was quite different than it is today. In the Club Era, “Stable Road” crossed what is now Beachview Drive 450 feet to the North of the current “Stable Road”, and a half-mile North of the round-about at the entrance to the current Beach Village. In fact, during the Club Era what is now Beach Village would have been where the 11th, 12th and 16th holes of the 1927 Great Dunes golf course ‘back-nine’ were located.
Beach Village, circa 1993
January 1993 Satellite Image, looking East
The center piece in the State Era was the 1961 Aquarama heated, in-door pool with its iconic, triangle-shaped enclosure that was removed in 1988, and by the end of 1993 the pools had also been removed and backfilled.
It is by no coincidence that the Summer Waves Water Park on the southwestern side of the island and first opened in 1987 had quickly become Jekyll Island State Park’s very successful summer season water attraction.
Nearby was the 1970’s era conference center and on the opposite side of Beachview Drive was a pair of 1960’s era shopping centers, all surrounded by a sea of asphalt parking lots, where several landscaped islands were added to soften the look at some point.
A Flashback to the 1970’s when the Aquarama was still an indoor, heated “almost” Olympic size pool.
The Evolution of Communities on Jekyll Island State Park
The Six Initial Communities on Jekyll Island
Several of the 1960’s and even 1970’s State Era beachside structures that were still standing and in use to some extent by the time of our first visit in 1993 were in need of renovation. To that end, the three hotels / motels located south of the current Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island — the 1961 Georgia Coast Inn 2, 1971 Holiday Inn and 1961 Buccaneer — would eventually close and be razed between 2005 and 2007, and two of the three would become the new communities of the Ocean Oaks in 2018 and Seaside Retreat currently being developed in 2025.
Note 2: The Georgia Coast Inn was originally the first Holiday Inn on Jekyll Island, then acquired by and renamed the Stuckey Inn in 1963, then became the Atlantic Carriage Inn in 1970. It was next acquired by Ramada Inn Corporation in 1980, but continued to operate under the Georgia Coast Inn brand. It encountered financial issues after the Ramada Inn Corporation dropped the brand and it eventually closed in 2002 and went into bankruptcy in 2004.
However, before I get ahead of myself, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Jekyll Island State Park’s six residential communities, laid-out and with development beginning in the 1950’s: Beach, Oak Grove, Palmetto, St. Andrews, Pinegrove and Old Plantation.
As the JIA moved closer to re-opening the island while work on the Jekyll Creek lift-bridge was on-going, residential lot lease applications fell well short of expectation.
When the JIA’s Master Plan was developed, it called for leasing 750 lots per year with a goal of achieving a grand total of 2,000 leased lots for both commercial and residential purposes.
Initially, residential lots inland and without beach views were assed fair-market lot values that yielded an annual rent fee of $100 per year $1,204 in 2025 $’s, while those with beach views, corner lots and those that could be used for multi-unit dwellings were accessed a $400 per year $4,817 in 2025 $’s lease rent fee.
However, by 1960 the Island had just over 21 adults as permanent residents, with between fifteen and twenty school-age children. As of 1961, only a total of 97 homes had been built on lots leased from the JIA, but by 1964 that number had increased to 326, and as of 1989 there were 733 permanent homes built on lots leased from the JIA on the island.
More Recent Re-Development
It was also in 1989 when the Villas By The Sea became a community and added a few additional permanent residences, but it was in 2015 when the JIA began to approve new, additional ‘communities’ with permanent residents in earnest:
As noted, the first ‘new community’ since the 1950’s came when a portion of the 1973 By the Sea Hotel was converted to a condominium / hotel Villas by the Sea arrangement in 1989.
Jekyll Island State Park gained it’s next, new residential community in 2015 when the 1971 Sand Dollar Hotel was demolished and replaced by the 123-unit “The Cottages” townhouse and single family home development.
Next was the demolition of the 1972 Holiday Inn, where the southern-most portion was replaced by the Hampton Inn& Suites in 2010, but with the northern two-thirds replaced by the 36 single-family home Ocean Oaksdevelopment in 2018.
In 2023, the all new Moorings was built, a 39-condominium and 9-townhouse re-development of land originally cleared for a second dry boat storage building near the Jekyll Island Marina that was never built.
Now under construction is the 25 single-family home Seaside Retreat re-development of the former 1961 Buccaneer Motor Lodge property.
The Growth of Leased Home Sites and Population
Per the 2020 U.S. Censusand other reports based on the 2020 Census, Jekyll Island had a population of 1,078, with 659 households living in 1,434 housing units, of which 752 and single detached homes, with another 682 multi-unit structures.
I’ll delve into some of the home and resident count numbers well-down in the main body of this State Era, Part I Segment as a sidebar, noting that at times — even with the U.S. decennial census legally mandated by the Constitution data published by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s U.S. Census Bureau every ten years — the numbers get a bit ‘fuzzy’. The latter is driven by the somewhat fluid nature of Jekyll Island’s permanent, semi-permanent and seasonal residents, coupled with the total number of homes used as rental properties as well as multi-dwelling unit structures, e.g., duplexes, apartments and condominiums.
The Cost of Homes on Jekyll Island
On Jekyll Island, residential lot lease rents are calculated at 0.4% of the land’s fair market value annually, meaning the exact amount varies depending on the specific lot’s value. For example, a lot with a fair market value of $215,000 would have an annual lease rent of $860. In addition to the annual lease rent, owners are also responsible for property taxes —which in Glynn County are fairly high — as well as maintenance and utilities and in the newer communities monthly HOA fees, etc. Like many homes in recent years, asking prices for homes on Jekyll Island have sky-rocketed, but dropped quite a bit during 2025.
While there is still a sea of asphalt parking lots, at least to us they seem to have been‘better integrated‘ with green space in the current ‘Beach Village’. Moreover, they’ve used landscaping that will continue to grow and provide natural shade to the parking, shopping, dining and conference center area. The Beach Village is also now home to three of the five newer hotels on the island that share the southern end of the beachfront with the sole-surviving, renovated 1960 era, now Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island.
The Evolution of the Hotels and Motels Built Before the 1980’s
Lodging on the North End of the Island’s Beachside
The three motels built on the“north end” of the beach in the late 1950’s — Jekyll Estates, closely followed by the curiously-named Wanderer Motel4, and the Seafarer – Apartments / Motel — have gone through several different owners, renovations and rebranding. The Jekyll Island Estates now branded as the Beachview Club Resort, was recently acquired by Hilton Corporation and is now undergoing a renovation and addition of a third wing. The Wanderer is now owned and operated as the Holiday Inn Resort Jekyll Island by IHG, and the Seafarer – Apartments / Motel is now the Best Western Plus – Seafarer Inn & Suites. They remain motor-inn / motels with outdoor access to each room / apartments.
Note 4: As noted in a sidebar regarding the The Wanderer Incidentin Segment 1 of this anthology, during a storm on 29 November 1858 a ship named the Wanderer owned by Savannah businessman Charles Lamar, was diverted to and unloaded its contraband cargo of 409 enslaved people on Jekyll Island. This was one of the last cargoes of African slaves brought to the United States. The incident is noteworthy because the Federal Slave Importation Act, passed in 1807 and effective on 1 January 1808, had banned the foreign importation of enslaved people to the United States. News of the Wanderer’ landing off the coast of Jekyll Island and its cargo quickly spread across the country and contributed to the sectional tensions between the North and the South that would soon lead to secession and the Civil War.
They were joined in 1971 by the “Sand Dollar Motel” that was razed in 2015 and redeveloped into “The Cottages” at Jekyll Island, a $500K $683,444 in 2025 $’s plus townhome and single family home development. More recently, current listings for re-sales reflect homeowners asking prices in the high six-figure to mid-million dollar range.
In 1973, the “Villas by the Sea” Motor Lodge was opened, and after making several annual requests to do-so, in 1989 the JIA approved their conversion to a semi-condominium / hotel complex where condominium asking prices are currently in the $250k to $500k range.
Lodging on the South End of the Island’s Beachside
Four new hotels were added to the southern end of the beachfront since 2010, after the 1972 Holiday Inn Beach Resort was razed. About one-third of southern-most end the former 1972 Holiday Inn’ footprint was replaced by the Hampton Inn & Suites in 2010, and in 2018 the other two-thirds were replaced by the 36-single family home Ocean Oaks community.
The Marriott dual-branded Courtyard & Residence Inn opened in 2021 was a direct replacement for the 1961 Holiday Inn’s footprint after it was razed in 2005, and two of the other five motel sites were converted to the previously mentioned Ocean Oaks and Seaside Resort single family home communities.
The former 1959 Dolphin Inn site located at the southern, St. Andrews Beach end of Jekyll Island was repurposed as part of the Georgia 4-H at Camp Jekyll on Jekyll Islandin 1966.
The 1959 Dolphin Inn properties were subsequently razed and replaced in 2015 by a new 4-H staff dormitory, guest cabins, a dining hall and learning center complex anchored by the historic 1955 St. Andrews Beach Pavilion on Jekyll Island as part of the redeveloped 4-H compound operated as a University of Georgia Extension program as is the 4-H Tidelands Nature Center.
The following graphic provides a summary of the initial development of each motel and hotel through the 1970’s, as well as their subsequent evolution and the current state of the land on which they were built.
Some who are far-more familiar with and lived through the Georgia State Owned Era have drawn parallels between the the sometimes erratic-seeming actions and decisions by the JIA made in the development and business arrangements over the years to the the split personality captured in the 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The latter is sometimes invoked as a colorful metaphor for some of the directions in which the Jekyll Island State Park has been taken over the years.
Sidebar 2: The JIA and Jekyll & Hyde Metaphor
For those who don’t know much about Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella beyond movies made based on the story, Stevenson first came into fame in 1883 with his publication of Treasure Island.
For Dr. Henry Jekyll, Stevenson named the benevolent and respected doctor whose surname he borrowed from his good friend and clergyman Walter Jekyll — and is correctly spelled with two ‘Ls —was pure coincidence with that of Jekyl Island.
Stevenson’s character Mr. Edward Hyde was based on an acquaintance named Eugène Marie Chantrelle, whom he first thought was a normal, civilized, well-educated man. It was only later Stevenson learned Chantrelle was a sexual predator capable of killing without the slightest moral qualm, hence he became Mr. Hyde.
In addition to the name and ‘good and evil’ split-personality, yet another coincidence was that the novella was published in 1886, the same year the Jekyl Island Club was founded.
The Good…
While there were arguably several poor decisions made by the State and Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) over the 78-years since it acquired and took on the management and development of Jekyll Island as a State Park, my wife and I have found the island to be a very enjoyable place to visit. We enjoy it so much that we visit several times a year, despite the 350-mile / five-and-a-half hour drive that takes us on Interstate 75 through the sometimes frustrating if not gridlocked Marietta, Atlanta and McDonough traffic.
Being only a visitor and not a resident, the current-state of the island ‘seems to have’ achieved a balance of accommodations, amenities, and thankfully not fully-exceeded the 35% threshold for development of the island, aka, the now obsolete 35/65 rule mandated in the 1950 JIA Authority Act.
The latter held true even after the 35/65 rule was lifted to a 50/50 rule in 1953 through 1971, when it was prudently restored to the 35/65 rule. For those who may not know, it is now set at a fixed number of 1,675 acres that can be developed, of which less than 78 acres that could still be developed remained as of 2014 when the fixed number was adopted into Georgia State Law.
Sidebar 3: The 2014 Change of the 35/65 Rule to a Fixed Cap of 1,675 Acres
If it were not for an intervention in 2008 by a University of Georgia (UGA) PhD student working on an environmental study, irreparable harm could have been done to the island vis-à-vis over-development.
To conduct his study, he used overhead, Laser-based Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to map the island and established the actual remaining undeveloped land was only ~55-acres, whereas it was the JIA’s belief they had 108 undeveloped acres remaining to support their plans. The JIA’s fundamental miscalculation was tied to the use of the previous and incorrect 1996 JIA Master Plan that used outdated Georgia Department of Transportation maps and also erroneously including 65 and 1/3 acres of man-made water hazards on the golf courses as ‘undeveloped’ land.
The question of the total number of remaining undeveloped acres of land available to use was raised again in May 2013 when, after a task force established to update the Jekyll Island Master Plan came to the conclusion that most of the previous estimates of how much undeveloped land remained were inconsistent: the issue was the previous use of “dry land at high tide” that allowed for the inconsistent inclusion of marshlands in the total landmass of Jekyll Island.
On the basis of those findings, it was decided to do-away with the subjective 35/65 rule in place since 1971, with a compromise measure that established a fixed cap on 1,675 total acres of land that could be developed on Jekyll Island. The latter is codified in both Georgia Senate Bill 296 passed in February 2014, with the same language in House Bill 715 passed in April 2014, and then adopted into the 2014 Jekyll Island Master Plan.
Of that 1,675 acres, all but 78 of those acres had already been developed by 2014, and both Bills and the updated 2014 Jekyll Island Master Plan sets out specific rules for how the remaining land could be improved: (A) twelve acres were set aside for expansion of the original Jekyll Island Campground that is underway; (B) 20 acres were available for “unrestricted uses”; and (C) the remaining 46 acres were designated to be used for “public health, public safety or public recreation.”
Once land is developed on Jekyll Island, it will always be considered developed, but may be re-developed which is what the more recent new hotel and residential projects have involved, as did the development of Beach Village, the Summer Waves Water Park and the 4-H Tidelands Nature Center’s Tidelands Pond, as expanded upon below.
In regard to the development and evolution of Jekyll Island State Park over the past 78-years, it can be argued as to whether or not the State still provides accessibility that meets the original guidelines included in the 1950 Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act.
Per the non-legally binding language in the Act, the stated goal was to ensure average Georgian’s across nearly all working and working-derived income levels were to be provided with the ability to access and enjoy the State Park and beach.
However, beyond being able to afford the current $10 per vehicle [or $15 for vehicles exceeding eight feet] ‘parking fee’ that enables all of its occupants to enter the State Park and enjoy access to the Historic District, beaches, parks, trails, fishing piers, and nature areas in the park, it is clear not every Georgian may be able to afford and enjoy equal levels of all the same overnight accommodations, hospitality and amenities provided by some of the upscale hotels and newer communities. Therein lies some level of disagreement as to whether or not the operation of Jekyll Island State Park is meeting it’s purported goals.
Sidebar 4: The Cost of Staying Overnight on Jekyll Island State Park
With regard to meeting it goal to provide access by average Georgians, concerns and tensions still exist in that the JIA appears to place a priority on the island’s high-end tourism trade and mostly taxpayer-funded, State-agency convention business to meet it’s mandate of being self-sustainable. In doing-so, fewer reasonably priced accommodations are less accessible to the average working and working-derived income level Georgia residents and families.
I say that as the U.S. national average daily rate (ADR) for hotels was $162.72 as of May 2025, while Jekyll Island’s $351.00 ADR is significantly higher than even nearby St. Simon’s Island with its ADR of $274.00. For comparison, this would be nearly three-times as high as a non-resort city like our own home town of Kennesaw, Georgia which has an ADR of $132.00-$138.00.
However, there are family-size residential property rentals available on Jekyll Island that on a per-person basis are a bit more reasonable, but carry hefty cleaning fees that almost warrant longer stays to amortize those fees. However, those extra nights carry significant resort-fees from the JIA and a 14% room tax, payable by all motels, hotels and private residence rentals.
For those interested, below is the August 2025 Jekyll Island Occupancy Report from the JIA’s monthly board meeting on 30 September 2025. It provides a count of the total rooms, occupation rate, ADR, Rev/PAR and revenue trends for the motels and hotels on the Island. Note that, to my knowledge, while they collect taxes and fees from Airbnb and other private residential rentals, they don’t appear to report on the associated rates, likely given the variability of full-time rentals, vs. part-time rentals, never-mind the ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ below-the-radar part-time “accommodations” made to friends and families.
… the Bad and the Ugly
While there is a lot of goodness, I still have lingering concerns about the future of Jekyll Island State Park based on what I learned as I researched the history of the Georgia State Ownership Era and some of the decisions that were made during the development of the Jekyll Island State Park over the years.
Moreover, there appears to be quite a bit of ‘revisionist history’ in many of the articles, videos, and both published and oral histories provided to visitors about the State Park’s development.
One example I find quite often is where background is provided for the restoration of the dunes or loss of the Great Dunes golf course’s back-nine, routinely cited as being due to coastal erosion instead of having been excavated by the JIA to enhance the view of the ocean from Beachview Drive. It has been in turn, that island erosion has been greatly accelerated by the removal of the centuries-old, naturally formed dunes.
Another is that the 4-H Tidewaters Pond was originally created for the 1980’s Ski Rixen / Rixen Pond, when in fact it was part of a failed-effort in the 1970’s to create a massive, 450-yacht luxury marina, which is true of the land where the 1987 Summer Waves Water Park is located.
To that end, the following are ‘summary-level’ overviews of a few of these and other development issues that I’ll expand on in the main body of this State Era, Part I Segment.
1950’s and Excavation of the Dunes: Early-on, the State made some dreadful, irreversible changes to the island’s ecosystem in the name of “making it more attractive as a resort” in an effort to generate more interest in the island and greater revenue from visitors, business owners, and residents via fees and lease rates.
One of the first and most devastating was while the park was closed between 1951 and 1954 when the JIA excavated ‘at least’ two-miles of the naturally formed dunes from the mid and north coastline of the island, including the dunes that sat between the beach and the back-nine holes of the original Walter J. Travis 1927 Great Dunes golf course.
More specifically, in the now nearly flat, two-miles of ocean front area that lies between the Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island — just south of the current Beach Village and the Jekyll Ocean Club Resort — to what originally was the 1959 Jekyll Island Estates Motel — now known as the Beachview Resort — was excavated by the JIA in the early 1950’s, and then some.
I say ‘at least’ as based on the image at right, it’s also apparent two-additional miles of natural dunes north of the Jekyll Island Estates Motel site were also removed to provide level land for the the Beach residential community development that lies between Beachview Drive and the coastline, as well as north of that where current “Cottages” and “Villa-by-the-Sea” developments are located where at one time the original Beachview Drive was located.
The purpose of removing the dunes was to create unobstructed views from what became Beachview Drive to attract motel developers and potential residents to the beachfront lots, while also re-using the soil as fill for the island-side of the access roads from the soon-to-be-completed Jekyll Island Causeway and Jekyll Creek lift-bridge.
Quoting from page 55 of Nick Doms must-read “Millionaires to Commoners”, “The views must have been spectacular since no dune was left untouched, and one could amost touch the salty water from a slow moving car. The roadbed and hightide waterline are so close they almost seem to kiss and embrace one another with each incoming tide.”
It was in the late 1950’s when another ~1.1-miles of dunes were leveled between what is now The Cottages and where the Villas by the Sea meets the current Driftwood Beach.
Reference the image that follows, the purpose of that project was to relocate a portion of the 1954 Perimeter Road 5 400-feet to the west and away from the beachfront to where it is currently located, while also creating additional and valuable beachfront hotel lot property eventually developed into the 1971 Sand Dollar Motel and the 1972 By-The-Sea Motel.
Note 5: Those who are interested can still find 2/10th of a mile of the original, oceanfront Beachview Drive between the northeast corner of The Cottages and the southeast corner of the Villas by the Sea, as well as a short segment at the Driftwood Beach parking area where the 1954 and 1959 Beachview Drive split.
Also cleared of all brush and partially excavated in the early 1950’s was most of the original land along the Jekyll Creek side of the island between the wharf and where the airport now sits, to include the Club’s original 1898 Riverside nine-hole golf course that sat east of the Club EraRiver Road and north of Villa Ospo.
The 1898 Willy Dunn Nine-Hole “Riverside” Course
The 1898 Riverside course was one of the oldest golf courses in the United States and the soil was used to support the improvement of the old Club Era River Road into the 1950’s Perimeter Road which eventually was renamed “Riverview Drive.”
For those with an interest, an exceptional on-line 2020 work by Donald J. Childs entitled, “Forgotten Golf Courses of Jekyll Island: Designs from the 1890s to the 1920s” goes into amazing detail with eye-opening images and graphics about the early, Jekyll Island Club Era golf courses that’s worth a read, or at least a skim-reading.
1960’s-1970’s and the 450 Luxury Yacht Marina: Just a bit further to the south of the Jekyll Harbor Marina are the remnants of a flawed and failed 450-yacht, fresh and salt water marina project proposed and approved by the JIA in 1967. The artists concept also included several cross-island parkways and roads through the south-end, tidal forest in lieu of Riverview Drive which appeared to have been partially removed / replaced by parking for the marina and several picnic areas to the east of those parking lots.
The project was finally abandoned in 1976 after what I believe was intended to be the larger, 60-acre salt water basin was unsuccessfully dredged, as after repeated dredging it would quickly be refilled with sediment moving down Jekyll Creek.
The smaller, 23-acre fresh water basin that was successfully dredged also proved to be unusable for its intended purpose, but was re-purposed briefly in the 1980’s as a Ski Rixen, cable-based electric-powered tow system / water skiing attraction when the basin became known as Rixen Pond. It was in 1990 when the JIA acquired the assets of Ski Rixen which ceased operations in the early 1990’s.
The financially successful Summer Waves Water Park was subsequently built in 1987 and made use of a portion of the developed land located between the two basins, and the JIA was able to partner with the University of Georgia 4-H Extension on Jekyll Island.to repurpose the abandoned fresh water basin into what is now known as the 4-H Tidelands Center.
The 4-H Tidelands Nature Center opened in CY2000 to expand the Jekyll Island 4-H program’s reach and make educational opportunities and recreational use of the basin available to island residents and visitors.It is also a popular place to paddle and fish and Rixen Pond is now usually referred to as the Tidelands Pond.
For those unfamiliar with the picnic area, it sits just beyond the current 2010 Hampton Inn & Suites and 2018 36-home Ocean Oaks community that occupy what was once the site of the 205-room, 1972 Holiday Inn.
Thankfully, after a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony was held for the Sea Circus attraction at the still undisturbed natural dunes on the southern end of the island on 30 May 1971, bureaucracy, zoning and finance issues caused the JIA to withdraw its approval of the project in September 1973.
1950’s – 1980’s, The Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s Fall From Grace
The Early Operation of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel & Eventual Closure in 1971
The and JIA attempted to operate the former Jekyll Island Club and surrounding Historic District as a public resort, but struggled to make it financially successful. Although initially well-managed by the Whitaker family from May 1949 to January 19516, the State Park was closed to the public in 1951 until the causeway and Jekyll Island Creek lift-bridge was opened in December 1954.
Note 6: The Whitaker’s personally operated the hotel and the State Park and met all of their obligations to the JIA, while bearing the significant financial losses incurred in doing-so on good-faith after multiple delays in making the island accessible via a promised causeway and a lift-bridge by 1950 failed to materialize.
Ahead of the reopening, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and Historic District lease was then initially and purportedly without knowledge granted to Georgia State Senator Jimmy Dykes in the mid-1950′. The so-called “Dyke’s Island” tumultuous lease period was terminated in 1959, and granted to the the Seaside Investment Company that managed the Wanderer Motel, co-owned by Albert Crews of the Crews Restaurant at the Wanderer motel.
The Georgia Historical Commission’s Role in Preserving the Jekyll Island Club Era Structures
However, working in the background was William R. Mitchell Jr., the Director of the Georgia Historical Commission’s Georgia Historical Sites Survey based in Atlanta, Georgia, who was instrumental — if not the catalyst — for placing the Horton-duBignon House/ Brewery Ruins, and duBignon Cemetery on the National Register of Historic Places(NRHP) on 28 Sept 1971.
It was in May of 1971 when Ken DeBellis — a member of Mitchell’s Jekyll Island State Park: Georgia Historic Sites Survey Staff in Atlanta who eventually became a member of the JIA staff overseeing the the development of the 1974 Master Plan for restoration of the Historic District — prepared and submitted a National Register of Historic Places – Nomination Form for the 240-acre, Jekyll Island Historic District and all major structures located therein in May 1971. The NRHP status was granted and Jekyll Island Historic District was added to the NRHP on 20 January 1972.
Despite It’s Historic Significance, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel was Closed by the JIA in 1971
Ironically, it was also in 1971 when the JIA made the decision to close the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the San Souci Apartments, having focused most their efforts since acquiring Jekyll Island on creating a beach resort that could compete with privately-operated resorts along the Southeast U.S. Atlantic coast.
However, unlike the private commercial resorts that were profit driven enterprises, Jekyll Island was a government-owned State Park managed by the JIA whose mandate was to ensure the park was financially self-sufficient.
The JIA had in attempting to do-so, approved the construction of what by 1971 were seven beachfront motels with 744 beds over the previous twelve years, with another three more motels to be opened between 1971 and 1973, adding another 644 beds. Therefore, the JIA had in many respects ensured the operation and associated maintenance costs of the state-owned Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the San Souci Apartments would never be financially self-sufficient to support meeting their mandate for the Jekyll Island State Park given all of the competition from “new” beach front motels.
The 1971 closure of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel marked the end of the State Era’s direct involvement with these these architecturally and historically significant buildings that sat vacant and essentially unsecured for over a decade. Moreover, the costs for repair, maintenance and upkeep of the Jekyll Island ClubHotel nor the San Souci Apartments were included alongside new funding acquired in the 1970’s for other restoration efforts by the JIA in the Historic District. It wouldn’t be until the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and San Souci Apartments would be given a 55-year lease to Leon N. Weiner & Associates in 1985, leading to their renovation and grand reopening as the Jekyll Island Club Hotel: A Radisson Resort in March 1987.
In regard to what work was done in the Jekyll Island Historic District while the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the San Souci Apartments languished, in reviewing the March 1972 JIA Board of Directors Meeting notes, the JIA planned on allocating $675,000 $5,231,669 in 2025 $’s in bond funds for the restoration of the Jekyll Island Historic District, on par with funds for a new marina and golf-course projects. By August 1975, $300,000 $1.8-million in 2025 $’s of those funds had been consumed by various restoration projects and was yielding the desired improved aesthetics and utilization of Club Era cottages and other buildings as the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and San Souci Apartments continued to fall further into disrepair.
The 1975 Master Plan for Restoration of the Historic District and It Becomes a National Historic Landmark District on 2 June 1978
Roger Beedle, a retired DuPont engineer and preservationist for the JIA from 1968 until 1978, is owed a debt of gratitude for his efforts along with those of Ken DeBellis for the development in 1975 of a master plan for the restoration of the Historic Village Area, aka.Jekyll Island Club Village, Old Village or Millionaires Village that included recommending greater use of the cottages and other buildings in the Village be utilized during its renovation that culminated with a grand re-opening of the Village in the summer of 1977, less the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, Annex and San Souci Apartments.
Despite the State of Georgia and JIA allowing the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, Annex and San Souci Apartments that sat at the center of the Historic District to become run-down, the Jekyll Island Club Historic District was designated as a National Historic Landmark District on 2 June 1978. In this regard, it was recorded in the October 1978 JIA Board Meeting Minutes that a representative of the U.S. Department of the Interior had come to Jekyll and presented the official bronze plaque designating Jekyll Island’s Club Village as a National Historic Landmark District.
Visitors can find the Jekyll Island Historical District’s National Historic Landmark plaque to the west of the original lobby area near the pool at the Jekyll Island Clubhouse and its Grand Dining Room which sits next to one of two Millennium Time Capsules on the island, the one dedicated by the Jekyll Island Museum and Friends of Historic Jekyll Island that was placed and sealed on 31 December 1999, to be opened on 31 December 2049, New Year’s Eve of January 2050.
A Look Ahead at Part II of the State Era: 1980 to Present & the Jekyll Island Club Hotel Restoration
The Jekyll Island Club Hotel is Restored During 1985 & Reopens on 17 March 1987
Although to be covered in detail in my future Part II in Segment 4 covering the State Era from 1980 to present, it’s noteworthy that after sitting dormant and unmaintained by the JIA since it was closed in 1971, the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, its Annex and the San Souci Apartments were essentially saved by a chance visit to the still closed Jekyll Island Clubhouse Hotel in December 1983.
It was attorney Vance Hughes and architect Larry Evans — good friends since high school in Calhoun, Georgia, with an interest and passion in the historic value of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse — who out of curiosity came to Jekyll Island State Park and who — like many visitors before them — walked-past the unsecure fencing surrounding the hotel, climbed through an unlocked window and became smitten with the neglected, deteriorating historic structure.
Fearing it might easily become slated for demolition by the State of Georgia given it’s poor condition and the likely cost to renovate, they decided to develop a proposal for the renovation of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, Annex and San Souci Apartments to present to the JIA for possible approval and support.
Fortunately, when they presented the idea to then JIA Executive Director George Chambliss they were met with enthusiasm for the project and helped to set-in-motion a series of events, as well as some high-risk career and life changes for Hughes and Evans who left successful legal and architectural firm positions and, instead, began working as independent legal and architect professionals so they could dedicate more time to their project.
After forming what was initially called the Circle Development Corporation, and later Jekyll Circle, Ltd. they were eventually put in touch with Leon Weiner and Dave Curtis of Leon N. Weiner & Associates (LNWA) in 1985. The new relationship with LNWA continued the series of events as well as wide-reaching investor interest and local, state and federal agency cooperation that lead to an amazing, $20-million $59-million in 2025 $’s restoration of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, its Annex and the San Souci Apartments during calendar year 1986.
The challenges were significant as were the myriad of other things that enabled the renamed Jekyll Island Club Hotel: A Radisson Resort now with a combined 134 rooms —noting the eight apartments in the San Souci were further sub-divided into four guest rooms and suites for a total of 24 rooms — to have a soft-opening in December 1986. The latter was a key milestone, given that much of the private financing had been arranged tied to a tax-based incentive program that expired at the end of 1986.
The Jekyll Island Club Hotel held its Grand Opening later on 31 March 1987, with various dignitaries present, to include Georgia Governor Frank Joe Harris. However, in addition to Hughes and Evans, the following were some of the key people who helped to make it all happen.
While it would go on to be recognized with the 1987 Award of Excellence from the National Commercial Builders Council of the National Association of Home Builders as the Best Historical Commercial Rehabilitation project over $3 million as well as the Grand Award of the Builder’s Choice Design and Planning Awards and the American Institute of Architects Preservation Award — never mind saving the historic buildings from being razed — the early years of hotel operations despite the involvement of the Radisson Hotel Corporation, were a challenge.
Kevin Runner, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s first general manager — who went on to hold that position for 35-years — noted it was hard work to enable the hotel to prosper during the first few years as,“…the cost of maintaining the property was much higher than we had thought.” Going further, “With a new hotel, you can pretty well predict, but with this one we had no idea…and suffered in trying to make ends meet.”
Despite merely moderate room rates, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s rates seemed high to the Jekyll Island State Park’s typical guests who stayed at the less expensive beachside motels. Moreover, few people outside of the southeast Georgia coastal, barrier island area were even aware the recently restored hotel had been re-opened further adding to the lower numbers of guests than expected and called-for in the business plan.
The Jekyll Island Club Hotel: A Radisson Resort 7did not find its footing until a few years after it had opened when Travel and Leisure magazine published a very positive review that generated over 800 calls on one day after the magazine hit the newsstands, according to Larry Evans. Coupled with some rate packaging and the hotel staff taking-over its own publicity, they finally began to see demand meeting the available numbers of rooms.
Note 7: I would highly encourage anyone who wants to know the full-story to find and read a copy of June Hall McCash and her son Branden Martin’s 2012 book entitled, “TheJekyll Island Club Hotel.“ Be forewarned, it’s a challenge to find a copy and when you do, they’re not inexpensive.
However, it remained a bumpy road under the Radisson brand, noting that in her 6 March 1994 review published in The New York TimesMagazine entitled Jekyll Island: Welcome to The Club, Phyllis Rose described her experience staying at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel as lackluster and “more Radisson than Vanderbilt”.
The quote was used in the context of describing the dining room’s decor and atmosphere after a disappointing meal, contrasting its “banal peach walls” and “undistinguished lighting fixtures” with the building’s Gilded Age origin. And, having seen the same peach colored Grand Dining Room and had an average dinner there on our July 1993 honeymoon, it was not as grand as we’d hoped, even though the room’s color complimented Miss Debbie’s crocheted dress that we’d found in one of the Pier Street stores earlier that day… a dress Miss Debbie still has and can wear to this day.
In fact, after we had a very disappointing first night in a small, cramped and noisy room in the Jekyll Island Club Hotel with ‘sort-of’ period furnishings that were far too large for the small room, what saved our visit was moving over to one of the rooms created in J.P. Morgan’s Apartment No. 6 in the San Souci.
We stayed in the first guest room on the left as you approach J.P. Morgan’s former Apartment No. Six from the stairwell. Like all of the six original apartments, it had been sub-divided into four guests rooms during the 1985 LNWA renovation, yielding the San Souci’s 24 guest rooms from the six original apartments.
The following are photos I took back in July 1993 of the sparsely decorated, pale-colored but very large guest room whose bathroom included a very out-of-place, massive fiberglass Jacuzzi tub. However, the décor and furnishings have apparently come a long way since then, based on more recent photos I’ve seen of the current guest room’s at the San Souci.
While I feel like I’m applying a double standard by not including far-more detail in this Part I of the State Era on the goodness brought by the Leon N. Weiner & Associates restoration and re-opening of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, its Annex, the San Souci Apartments, that’s best reserved for Part II of the State Era.
However, it’s noteworthy that their later restoration efforts expanded to include the 1904 Shrady/Cherokee and 1917 Crane Cottages as well as the restoration and conversion of the 1929 Morgan Tennis Center into the 2010 Morgan Conference Center and Ballroom.
Jumping Ahead to Some Other Controversial JIA Decisions
Continuing with my summary of questionable JIA decisions during and after the restoration of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, its Annex, the San Souci Apartments, I believe it provides the groundwork needed to understand why I — and many others who continue to take an interest in decisions made by the JIA regarding development on Jekyll Island State Park — still see the continued need for Jekyll Island’s residents and other concerned citizen group’s attention and vigilance. With that, here are two proposed projects that were thankfully not developed from the Post-Club & Georgia State Ownership Era, Part II – 1980 to 2025.
A pair of controversial projects were proposed and ultimately failed to materialize, in part due to efforts by community action groups such as “Save Jekyll Island” whose members saw them as being too exclusive and high-end for a State Park, noting the Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act still contained the aforementioned list of general powers that include the State Park being accessible and“available to people of average income”that, while not being a strict, enforceable law was a long-standing tradition.
The two-tower, six-story Canopy Bluff complex would have taken the place of the run-down, 228 room Buccaneer Beach Resort built in 1961 that had been sitting vacant since late 2004.
Canopy Bluff as proposed would have been a 301-room hotel with meeting space, restaurants and a cocktail lounge as well as 127 one-two-three and four bedroom condominium residences.
The project was approved by the JIA and had gone as far as having the Buccaneer razed and some limited site work underway when public opposition, including concerns over dense residential development in a State Park, and other issues caused the project to be cancelled.
The Canopy Bluff project was ultimately replaced with a $1-million-plus, 29 single-family home Seaside Retreat residential development on the existing, wooded Buccaneer footprint.
Heading up the redevelopment project is once again long-time Jekyll Island development partner LNWA & Associates and Retreat Hotels and Resorts.
The project was approved by the JIA in 2023 and is presently under construction, with initial homes to be completed in CY2026.
The ambitious $352-million $530-million in 2025 $’s project was quoted by some insiders as replacing the existing conference and shopping centers and adding as many as 1,500 new rooms as part of thousands of square feet of beachfront re-development, but also involved LLC being more involved in operating certain elements of the State Park.
This project also defied logic in terms of its scale, breadth, cost and the generous terms to be provided to the developer and faced widespread opposition from residents and local legislators for similar reasons as the ‘Canopy Bluff’ project.
The JIA and LLC mutually agreed to end their partnership in December 2009, citing the poor economy and difficulty in securing financing.
The Beach Village project that replaced what had grown to the $450-million $677-million in 2025 $’scancelled LLC proposed development project began in 2009 with the Great Dunes Beach Park opened in 2010.
It was followed by the new Jekyll Island Convention Center opened in 2012, and the Beach Village Shopping Center and 200-room Westin Jekyll Island conference center hotel, both opened in 2015: the combined, total cost was $125-million $170-million in 2025’s.
A total of $50-million $68-million in 2025 $’s in Georgia taxpayer-backed funding was used to pay for the development of the current convention center and new beachfront park, while $75-million $103-million in 2025 $’s in private investments funded the development of the Beach Village with its 40,000-square-feet of retail and restaurant space, loft condominiums, and the 200-room Westin Jekyll Island conference center hotel.
Subsequent, private investments funded the development of the 36-suite Jekyll Ocean Club Resort opened in 2017 as well as the107-room Home2 Suites by Hilton opened in 2019.
The Future?
At times, there still seems to be an on-going struggle of the JIA’s actor Jack Elam-like misaligned eye’s vision for the State Park:
There’s the one eye that remains focused on preserving the historic nature of the Historic Village and remaining committed to being good stewards of the undeveloped island’s land and ecosystem.
However, the other eye seems at times to always be looking for opportunities to upscale and redevelop land on the island that’s already been developed as a higher-end and exclusive housing enclaves to generate greater, on-going revenue streams from leases, fees, and the management of island amenities.
The same holds true for the 66-acres of remaining undeveloped land on Jekyll that can be developed, remembering 12 of those 78 acres of the 1,675-acre cap on Jekyll Island land that can be developed are now undergoing development with expansion of the Jekyll Island Campground.
Long-time residents tend to remain crucial to keeping the current, higher-end / resort direction in check as the JIA seems to keep moving in that direction, and the long-time residents remain mindful of past changes in the percent of island permitted to be developed, as well as changes in restrictions that seem to favor developers and how all that will continue to impact life of the island as well as the costs and fees associated with living on the island, etc.
Hopefully, the less subjective, easier to verify 2014 State Law for a 1,674-acre ceiling on land development will put that to rest.
Residents, like business owners, don’t own the ground under their homes and, instead, merely lease it from the State of Georgia on an annual basis and that remains an area of concern as some leases expire in 2049, and others in 2089. Albeit, those are well in the future, but they definitely impact the current-year value of “homes” that have been built on the JIA-owned lots that residents merely lease.
There is also the on-going alteration of the natural environment conditions that helped to shape Jekyll and the other Barrier Islands geographic evolution. These changes have been caused by ‘streamlining’ the flow of inland rivers to coastal like the St. Simons Channel basins for various reasons, as well as the dredging of the channel that began as far back as 1903. The dredging has been an on-going practice managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, both to either widen or deepen the channel to accommodate larger commercial shipping vessels, or more significantly, where nearly 80% of the dredging is “maintenance” of the channels to counter the natural process of shoaling.
Sidebar 5: The Unintended Consequences of Dredging Waterways Around Jekyll Island
Dredging significantly disrupts the natural process of shoaling, which is essential to keeping both coastal erosion and accretion of sand and sediments in balance via re-nourishment through shoaling and as well as erosion and accretion because of high shoaling rates. As noted above, up to 80% of the maintenance funding for the harbor is often used to keep the entrance channel clear.
Prior to dredging, much of this shoaling of sediment in the deepened St. Simons Channel would have continued to flow through the channel at its former natural depth to replenish the natural erosion of Jekyll Island’s north and eastern shorelines.
However, while Jekyll Island’s north and eastern shorelines continue to experience this natural erosion — which also extends the length of the island to the south via the natural accretion process — the material that has been eroded-away is no longer being replenished due to the dredging of St. Simons Channel.
Try as they might, unsuccessful efforts to ‘control erosion’ through the installation of the highly visible ‘Rip-Rap’ at the Clam Creek Fishing Pier, and along the eastern shores of Jekyll Island and elsewhere has not been able to achieve what the natural replenishment achieved for centuries
Rip-Rap is the installation of filter cloth and embedding large pieces of granite, limestone, and fieldstone, but can also include recycled man-made materials like concrete and asphalt to create a stable, erosion-resistant structure that will disrupt the erosive effects of wave action and hopefully encourage the growth of native vegetation to further enhance erosion resistance.
It is called Rip-Rap based on the combination of the nautical term “rip,” meaning a stretch of rippling water, and “rap,” meaning to strike or blow: when used together, they describe how waves “Rip” or ripple the water’s surface and then “Rap” or strike against the shore, and the large rocks placed there to resist this action.
As noted in the Spring / Summer 2023, Volume 6, Number 1 of 31•81, the Magazine of Jekyll Island article entitled Shifting Sands, Changing Tides, it was in August 1964 when the JIA voted unanimously to install 1,200 feet of Rip-Rap rock along the North Picnic Area — now the current location of Driftwood Beach — to protect it from erosion. But, the vote came too late, as before it could be installed it was in the following month on 12 September 1964 when Hurricane Dora came ashore at Jekyll Island, causing heavy damage to the Island in several places, including inundating the North Picnic Area.
The Jekyll Island’s Rip-Rap stone installations are also known as “Johnson Rocks”, so named for President Lyndon Johnson who visited the Georgia Barrier Islands in 1965 following the damage from Hurricane Dora and requested something be done to help protect the Georgia Barrier Islands coastline from erosion. His request prompting the first Federally-funded installation of large granite ‘Rip-Rap’ along Jekyll and other Barrier Island eastern Atlantic coastlines.
Jekyll Island’s coastal Rip Rap installations are highly visible along 2.7-miles of the Jekyll coastline from the Oceanview Park just south of Capt. Wylly Road to the north-end of the beach area in front of Villas by the Sea where it meets the present location of Driftwood Beach.
In terms of their effectiveness, rather than paraphrase, I’ll merely link to a 15 April 2015 article in the Jackson Union Times that speaks to problems Rip-Rap / Johnson Rocks created, while at the same time failing to control beach erosion that has, in turn, led to island erosion.
One of the most notable and ironically famous consequences of the north and northeastern coastal erosion has been the migration of “Driftwood Beach, aka Roots or Boneyard Beach” from the northern end of the island to the east of the inlet for Clam Creek and the Fishing Pier, still visible approximately a mile south to where the 1950’s and 1960’s era “North Picnic Area’ was once located.
Jekyll Island is also seeing further evidence of the disruption of natural replenishment elsewhere around the island, to include at St. Andrews Beach on the Jekyll Creek side of the Island and storm-related erosion damage at both the current Driftwood Beach / Clam Creek area, as well as smaller sections of the eastern coast of the southern coastline.
The On-Going Movement to Upscale
Given what I’ve learned about the island’s history during the State Owned Era, I too remain concerned what the future may hold since many of the JIA past practices seem to resurface sporadically to this day, e.g., not renewing leases on businesses previously established by entrepreneur lease-holders and replacing those businesses with state-operated ones that seem to ultimately fail under State ownership.
I remain cautiously optimistic the re-invigorated, now JIA-operated Pier Street businesses like “The North Pole South” and others will draw enough island visitors to equal or surpass the revenue generated when they were leased and operated by private citizens who had established and operated those businesses without the infusion of capital improvements the JIA put forth during 2024. While we were sad to see the long-time private owners lose their leases, we’ve been pleased with what we’ve seen in their place, albeit with an unknown return on investment by the JIA.
And, with the Pier Street changes mentioned above as a backdrop, there also appears to be continued pressure to ‘up-scale’ the island in partnership with developers — both long-time partners from the 1980’s to new players — and an effort to remain competitive with the very upscale, private resorts and now nearby St. Simons Islands exclusive communities who serve a very different type of clientele.
The latter has shifted the economic model for Jekyll Island in a direction that has clearly placed it beyond the reach for many average citizens of Georgia for anything other than a daytrip, even though it remains well within reach for more well-off other Georgians as well as tourists looking to spend time along Georgia’s GoldenIsles and its Barrier Islands.
The Jekyll Island Club’s Closure & State Acquisition
Why Did the Jekyll Island Club Close?
Below I’ve tried to summarize some of the key points that recaps my conclusions as to why the Jekyll Island Club ultimately closed in 1942 and included in the end of my Segment 2 published in November 2023, The Jekyll Island Club Era, 1883 to 1947.
Writers have offered inferred as to why by the 1930’s the Jekyll Island Club began to drift towards it’s last full season in 1942, usually citing the Stock Market Crash of October 1929 and Great Depression, or World War II related issues as being the primary cause.
While convenient and timely, these inferences typically assume the Club’s wealthy members lost their fortunes in the Great Depression and/or the U.S. government didn’t want to have 1/6th of the worlds most-wealthiest men and their families being so close to the German U-Boat infested Atlantic Ocean.
Unfortunately, those inferences fail to recognize what I believe are the true primary causes: the founding members had all ‘aged-out’ and their heirs were born into a different world with different interests and other options for how to use their expendable wealth, assets and leisure time.
The Core Members of the Jekyll Island Club Simply Aged-Out
John Claflin, 1886 vs. 1938
By 1920, all but five of the original 53 founding members of the Club had died. These were the original, wealthy Gilded Age entrepreneurs who brought the Jekyll Island Club its mystique and fame, several of whom were instrumental in the early development and management of the club.
One of the five — Edmund Hayes — resigned at the age of 72 in 1921, and died two-years later at the age of 74 in 1923. Three others died during the 1920s: William Rockefeller in 1922 at the age of 81, Charles Maurice in 1924 at the age of 84, and McEvers Brown8 in 1926 at the age of 74. The fifth was one of the youngest of the founding members, John Claflin9 who was 36 when the Club was founded in 1886, and passed at the age of 88 on 11 June 1938.
Note 8: McEvers Brown, as noted earlier, was a New York banker who became a recluse and left the country in 1988 after commissioning the construction of the first ‘cottage’ on Jekyll Island. The so-called Brown Cottage was completed in 1988, with Brown never having lived-in nor seeing the finished cottage during the remaining 37-years of his life that he spent living outside the United States.
Note 9: Founding member John Claflin — who had helped John Eugene DuBignon acquire the island so he could sell it to the Club —had been forced to drop his membership in 1912 due to financial hardships. However, he was able to recover financially and rejoined the Club in 1921 and acquired Henry K.Porter’s Mistletoe Cottage in 1924.
Four other major changes occurred during the 1930s:
The Retirement of Ernest Grob: The loss of older members who appreciated the simple life at the Club was exacerbated by the retirement of long-time Club superintendent Ernest Grob in 1930, followed by Capt. James Clark and his wife the former head housekeeper Minnie, as well as Grob’s assistant J.C. Etter.
There was also the unexpected and sudden death of Club President Walter Jennings on 7 January 1932 following an auto accident on the island.
These were long-time, familiar members of the extended Jekyll Island Club family that also shaped the Club experience for the members.
Falling Membership: While Club membership was still near its all-time high at ninety-seven in January 1931 when the Club opened for the season during the Great Depression, attendance declined as inflation drove-up the cost to operate the Club.
Membership fell by 27% to seventy-one in 1932, with only three new members, two of whom were widows with prior Club connections.
The trend continued into the following years with membership falling to sixty-four in 1933, and to fifty-four in 1934.
The Introduction of Associate Members: Heir to J.P. Morgan, his only son J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr, replaced Walter Jennings as Club President in 1932 and in 1934 he instituted major changes in the Club’s constitution with the introduction of a revised class of re-issued stock-owning ‘Founding Members’.
Under his changes, Founding Members would continue to pay $700 $16,875 in 2025 $’s per year in dues, while a new Associate Member class of membership that was far more affordable at just $150 $3,616 in 2025 $’s per year as a way of stemming the loss of Club membership.
The cultural and generational differences in the long-time, Founding Member class of the Club and the Associate Member class became obvious as the latter treated the Club more as a resort than a winter home, and didn’t establish the close ties that were common with the original and ‘Founding Member’ class.
By 1935, the widows and female heirs of Club members now comprised 25% of the Founding Member class, owned seven of the thirteen remaining cottages and were the chairs on six of the twelve executive committees By 1936, Founding Members numbered less than fifty, while Associate Members numbered ninety. J.P. “
Jack” Morgan Jr., did not come to the Club for the 1937 season and tendered his resignation on 25 February 1938.
The Bill Jones & Cloisters on Sea Island Connection: A partnership with Alfred “Bill” Jones who owned the Cloisters on Sea Island was established in the mid-1930’s whereby the Cloisters, under the direction of Sea Island President J.D. Compton, assisted in the upkeep of the Jekyll Island Club and allowed Club members to use their Cabin Bluff hunting preserve, as Jones saw the continued success of the Jekyll Island Club as a humble winter home / hunting club to be in the best interest of his upscale Cloisters resort.
Jones and Compton’s primary motivation in ‘helping’ the struggling Jekyll Island Club was to ensure no other parties would attempt to acquire the Club and island who might change the nature of the Club to make it competitive with the Cloisters on Sea Island.
The Changing Nature of the Club
JP “Jack” Morgan Jr. & Prentice, 1938
The Club president, J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr., did not come to the Club for the 1937 season and tendered his resignation on 25 February 1938. In his place, the fifty-five year-old stock-broker, world renown tennis champion and former American Davis Cup Committee Chairman, Vernon Sheldon Prentice was elected as Club president in 1938. For the first time in Club history, Prentice began to publicly promote and market the Club via press releases made on the Club’s behalf by the Sea Island press office as the Club began hosting a series of golf, tennis and lawn bowling tournaments.
All of this added-revenue still failed to cover the cost of operating the Jekyll Island Club in light of the lost support of the original 53 Founding Members who, along with the remaining ‘Founder Level‘ members, were essentially underwriting the cost of maintaining the Club for the benefit of the Associate Members.
To generate additional revenue, Prentice extended the J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr, on-going island timbering contract to harvest the natural Barrier Islands forest hardwood with the American Creosoting Company. It was seen as a temporary stop-gap source of revenue for the Club, used from 1941-1944 that generated $44,000 $807,620 in 2025 $’s in revenue for the Club.
With the exception of Edwin Gould’s son Frank and Charles Maurice’s daughters Marian and Margaret, most of the Club member heirs did not share the fondness of Jekyll Island’s isolation and relaxed nature. Even new, wealthy members like Richard Crane, Jr. who joined the Club in 1911 at the age of 58, died of a heart attack twenty year later in 1931, and while the Crane Cottage was inherited by his wife Florence, she deeded it over to her children in 1939 who, in turn, conveyed it to the Jekyll Island Club in 1941: they just had no interest it spending time on Jekyll Island given their other options.
By 1941, the latter was was true of seven other privately owned cottages. Only the Moss, Villa Marianna and HollybourneCottages still remained in private hands through 1947 when the State of Georgia began the condemnation proceedings and acquired the island and all improvements made thereon. The following is a list of the 15 cottages using their most common names built by Club members from 1888 through 1928 and their disposition:
1888 Brown Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Clubin 1926 and razed in the mid-1940s.
1890 Fairbank Cottagewas conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club and razed in 1944.
1889 Furness Cottage was donated to Jekyll Island Club in 1930 an an infirmary.
1890 Maurice – Hollybourne Cottage was owned by Margaret Maurice until October 1947 who was granted a $20,000 $289,729in 2025 $’s settlement for the cottage when the club was acquired by the state.
1890 Brown – Solterra Cottagewas destroyed by fire in 1914.
1892 McKay / Rockefeller – Indian Mound Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in 1934.
1896 Struthers / Moss Cottage owned by W. Kingsland Macy until was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in 1941.
1897 King / Gould – Chichota Cottagewas conveyed to the Club in 1936 and razed in 1941.
1898 Pulitzer / Aldrich / Cottagewas conveyed to the Club in 1934 then damaged by fire and razed in 1951 as the JIA decided it was not cost effective to repair.
1900 Porter – MIstletoe / Claflin Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in 1940
1904 Shrady / James – Cherokee Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in 1942.
1906 Goodyear / Rogers Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club after 1942.
1917 Crane Cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club after 1941.
1927 Jennings – Villa Ospo was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club on 28 May 1942.
1929 Gould – Villa Marianna was owned by Helen Gould’s attorney, Lawrence Condon until October 1947 who was granted a $60,000 $869,187 in 2025 $’s settlement for the cottage when the club was acquired by the state.
Hollybourne CottageVilla Marianna
The Changing Nature of the Island
When the Jekyll Island Club was formed in 1886, the island had sparse dirt roads, trails and no significant infrastructure to speak of other than electricity, water and sewage systems.
By the time the State of Georgia acquired it through the condemnation process and eminent domain in 1947, the 240-acre Club Compound now called the Historic District contained the Club’s aforementioned 11 remaining Club member cottages, Clubhouse with its hotel and Annex, the San Souci Apartments as well as many support buildings, staff dormitories, the Red Row community and over 30 other small homes built for married staff members with families. There was also a sizeable swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, two golf courses. a large horse and automobile stable, an electric power-generation plant, and well-developed water & sewage systems.
Though sparse, the island had the aforementioned extensive networks of good roads, bicycle & bridle paths, supported lumbering operations and had a dairy farm to the north of the Club Compound on the still mostly undeveloped island.
However, part of what made it such an exclusive and private haven for its Club members was also the most daunting feature: Jekyll Island was still a true island accessible only by water from Brunswick, at best a 45-minute ferry trip across the Turtle River and Jekyll Creek to the Club’s wharf and pier on the west side of the island, across from Latham Hammock.
Jekyll Island’s Roads & Paths 1886 vs 1942
Red = Bicycle Path, Blue = Bridle Path
A glimpse of the Club Era Bicycle Paths that ran the length of the Island
The Acquisition of Jekyll Island by the State of Georgia
Club Membership was a Luxury Expense, not an Investment
Point of fact, much of the success of the Club’s initial growth was due to the wealth and generosity of both its founding Club members and executive committee members. They would often times either give personal loans to the Club, make outright donations, or in the case of Frederic Baker, by personally covering the annual operating deficits from his personal wealth. The subscription process was also used to support many of the Club’s developments and activities that were not otherwise included in the basic Club membership.
This was all above and beyond their initial investment in shares, annual dues — originally $100 per year $3,446in 2025$’s, raised to $300 per year $11,434in 2025 $’s in 1901, $500 a year $17,051in 2025 $’sby 1910 and eventually $700 per year $17,444in 2025 $’sin 1933 — and on-going expenses for room & board as well as property taxes for the members who built and/or acquired land and cottages on the island.
Individual shares had increased in cost from $600 ~$20,620/share in 2025 $’s when first founded in 1886 to $2,000 $68,010 in 2025 $’s by 1910.
Despite the annual dues, subscription fees, outright donations and interest-free loans made to the Club, it typically ran an operating deficit each season.
The Club’s 40-year-old 1880’s Charm Begins to Fade along with the Founders
As the original members‘aged-out’ and dropped their membership or died, by the early 1920’s only five of the original fifty-three members remained. However, in spite of the imposition of personal income tax in 1913, numerous bank and stock market crises, the New York Stock Market Crash in October 1929 and subsequent Great Depression, membership hit 100 as late as 1931, but then immediately began to decline and was down 34% with just 64 members in 1933, putting financial strains on the Club. In fact, by the end of 1931, the impact of falling membership and fewer members visiting the Club created an annual deficit of -$28,000 – $595,088 in 2025 $’s that once again had to be absorbed by the members.
J.P. Morgan Sr & Jr., 1913
J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr. became the Club President in 1933 and secured a $500,000 $12,424,923 in 2025 $’s mortgage loan to sustain its operation by re-issuing new stock to the shareholding ‘Founder’ membership class. Also under Morgan Jr., the executive committee created an Associate Member class to attract younger, more active members with a much lower, $125 $3,106 in 2025 $’s annual membership fee vs. the founder level’s $700 $17,394 in 2025 $’s annual membership fee to some success.
World War II Delivers the Coup de Grâce of the Club Era
After the Club re-opened in January as it had for many years, it closed early and for what would be the last time on 5 April 1942. It was a season plagued by war-time driven shortages, higher costs and staffing issues as many of the Club employees entered military service. After the Club closed in 1942, Jekyll Island had a crew of caretakers who looked after the cottages and Clubhouse, some of whom were the Club’s colored employees that lived on the island year-round in the Red Row colored community north of the Historic District.
Three days after the Club had closed and the last members had departed for other homes leaving the island in the capable hands of a cadre of caretakers when the German U-Boat U-123 10 commanded by Lt. Commander Reinhard Hardegen — and which had been prowling the coast of Georgia’s Barrier Islands — torpedoed and damaged two oil tankers in shallow water anchored off St. SimonsIsland to the north of JekyllIsland. More specifically, the SS Oklahoma oil tanker and the Esso Baton Rouge liquid natural gas (NLG) tanker were torpedoed on 8 April 194211, taking the lives of 22 crewman. On the following morning,U-123 torpedoed and sank the SS Esparta freight ship off Cumberland Island to the south of Jekyll Island, resulting in a 23rd life being lost.
Note 10: All told, between October 1940 and May 1943,U-123 sank 48 ships and damaged 6 others before being taken out of service at her home port of Lorient in Northwest occupied France on the Bay of Biscay on 17 June 1944. She was scuttled at Lorient on 19 August 1944, and subsequently raised by the French in 1945 after Germany’s surrender. She was restored and became the French submarine Blaison (Q165), serving with the French navy until being decommissioned on 18 August 1959.
Note 11: Both the Oklahoma and the Baton Rouge were refloated, towed to Brunswick’s dry docks, repaired and returned to service during World War II and both were eventually torpedoed and sunk again.
The State of Georgia and its citizens were caught off-guard and quickly thrust into the realities of modern warfare, as Jekyll and the other Barrier Islands were thought to be an unlikely target with numerous military bases nearby, its being a Barrier Island, and shallow waters. However, that in some respects made it a tempting target since there was poorly-protected war-time cargo shipping with sparse anti-submarine patrols and coastal communities that ignored blackout orders.
During the War
After the torpedo attacks by the German U-boat U-123, teams of U.S. Army solders and Coast Guardsmen were sent to Jekyll Island and quartered in the staff boarding house annex, later at the golf course Tee House and took their meals in the Club staff dining hall. They patrolled the island’s beach front and manned an observation tower near Shell Road and the beach throughout the war. The Coast Guard also erected and staffed an observation tower on the island and U.S. Coast Guard ships were deployed to the Barrier Islands for submarine patrol-duty. .
Note 12: In 1975 Glynco became the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.
Well before this time, all but two cottages — Hollybourne and Villa Marianna — had been conveyed to the Jekyll Island ClubCorporation, the last being Villa Ospo that was deeded-over on 28 May 1942.
While there was a desire by a few to reopen the Club after the war, J.D. Compton who had continued to oversee the caretaking on Jekyll Island during the war, had been asked by his boss — Sea Island Company CEO Bill Jones — in 1944 to prepare a study on what the costs were to restore Jekyll Island as well as a business case for doing so.
While there was the cost of work needed to restore the Clubhouse, Annex, San SouciApartments, cottages and other buildings, the most significant cost to reopen the Club was the creation of a causeway and bridge similar to the Brunswick – St. Simons Causeway.
The Brunswick – St. Simons Causeway13 was a 4.2-mile gravel road with a series of trestles spanning Terry Creek, Little River, and Mackay River, with two 280-foot swing bridges over the Back and the Frederica rivers. It was built in 1924 at a then-cost of $412,000 $7,783,378 in 2025 $’s. J.D. Compton’s Sea Island Company team estimated the cost for the Jekyll Island Club’s renovation, nine-mile long causeway and lift-bridge to be $130,00014$2,333,124 in 2025 $’s.
Note 13: The Brunswick – St. Simons Causeway was rebuilt in 1949 – 1950 and renamed the F.J. Torras Causeway. Torras was a Brunswick native, Georgia Tech graduate and the Chief Engineer on the 1923-1924 project, The F.J. Torras Causeway was widened from two to four lanes in the 1980’s
Note 14: The Jekyll Island Causeway being included in the $130,000 estimate appears to be dramatically understated by an order of magnitude based on the $3-million $36-million in 2025 $’s it cost the State of Georgia to build the causeway, lift-bridge bridge and bring electric power to the island in the early 1950’s. It would be interesting to know what the Sea Island Company used as the scope of work to arrive at the $130,000 amount, to include the causeway given the cost of the Brunswick-St. Simons Causeway 22 years earlier. Then again, this was at a time when Jekyll Island as well as Latham Hammock were privately-owned property and the causeway might not have been subject to the same requirements as a public road financed with public funds.
Even at $130,000, it was a sum only Club member Frank Gould could afford to fund. However, when Gould suddenly died from a ruptured aorta at 46-years-of-age on 14 January 1945, it triggered a chain of events that ultimately lead to the Club’s acquisition by the State of Georgia.
Interestingly enough, while the future of Jekyll Island remained uncertain, on 1 August 1946 both Bill Jones and Lawrence Condon were elected as members of the Jekyll Island Club and became shareholders in consideration of one-dollar for each of their shares15. At the time, they both had a financial interest in the future of the Club and the island, Jones not wanting Jekyll Island to be acquired by anyone who might try to compete with his Sea Island Resort and Cloisters properties, and Condon who now owned Villa Marianna, having taken title to the property from Gould’s widow, Helen Gould, in lieu of legal fees for settling Frank Gould’s estate and other legal matters.
Note 15: You may recall, the original cost of an individual share in the Jekyll Island Club in 1886 was $600 $20,620/share in 2025 $’s at a time when each of the founding members were required to buy two-shares. By 1910, the cost of a individual share had been raised to $2,000 $68,010 in 2025 $’s and merely adjusted for inflation between 1910 and 1947, an individual share would have had been worth $4,000 $57,945 in 2025 $’s. The latter would have likely been a number far higher than a share in the Club was then worth given back-taxes and the costs associated with returning the Club’s facilities and grounds to useful conditions, never mind the operating costs. However, it can be assumed their individual shares would have entitled Jones and Condon to receive a portion of the $153,353 $2.22 million in 2025 $’s paid-out to the nine-remaining shareholders of Club stock following the state’s acquisition of the island for $675,000 $9.8-million in 2025 $’s . Of course, that would be less back-taxes and the $20,000 $289,729 in 2025 $’spaid to Margaret Maurice for the title to the family’s Hollybourne Cottage and $80,000 $1.2-million in 2025 $’spaid to Condon for the title to Villa Marianna.
The Negotiation Process, Such as it Was
However, the wildcard became an idea shared with Georgia’s progressive young Governor Ellis Arnall’s by his protegee, Georgia’s Revenue Commissioner M.E. Thompson. It was Thompson who suggested he chair a special committee to investigate the feasibility of Georgia acquiring one of it’s Barrier Islands as a State Park. It would also be Georgia’s first tourist attraction, part of an effort to launch tourism as a revenue source for the State16.
Note 16: In 2023, Georgia tourism generated $4 billion in State and local tax revenues and $64.5 billion in total economic impact.
To that end, in 1945 the Georgia Legislature amended the State Constitution to allow it to acquire seashore property along its coast for the development of a State Park, through the acquisition by condemnation or eminent domain, if need be and in the best interest of Georgia’s citizens.
This came at about the same time Jones and Condon were wrestling with the “what to do about Jekyll” situation. Brunswick attorney Charles Gowen, a member of Thomson’s special committee, suggested Jekyll Island as the ideal candidate for a variety of factors:
Its proximity to a large city on the mainland served by the Macon and Brunswick Railroad & a harbor.
Its existing infrastructure and facilities, to include what was essentially a hotel.
Its amenities, to include the extensive amount of undeveloped, scenic natural land to include nearly 10-miles of attractive, hard-packed fine-sand beaches, 7-miles of which are along the Atlantic Ocean.
It was deeded to a single owner / corporation, the Jekyll Island Club.
It was in need of costly repairs and other significant needs with declining membership & revenue.
Per State tax records, the Club was in arrears for back taxes since 1942.
Gowen was given the go-ahead to contact J.D. Compton, the Sea Island Company’s President who was overseeing the Jekyll Island Club’s interests on the island, which he did on 19 August 1946 to see if Compton thought the Club would be willing to sell the island and his assessment of it’s value.
To make a long story short, Compton was unsure if the Club might be willing to sell the island for even a $1,000,000,$16,566,564 in 2025 $’s, but certainly for more than $750,000 $12,424in 2025 $’s based on other recent appraisals during his own studies on behalf of the Sea Island Company. It wasn’t until 30 September 1946 that Governor Arnall sent a letter to then Club President Prentice proposing an offer to purchase the island who, in turn, replied on 3 October writing the island was not for sale.
The Three Governors Controversy Delay’s Things A Bit
With the upcoming Democratic Primary in Georgia, State Revenue Commissioner, M.E. Thompson was running on the ticket with the Incumbent Governor Eugene Talmage as his Lt. Governor. As Georgia’s first Lt. Governor, Thompson became embroiled in what is known as ‘The Three Governors Controversy‘ after Eugene Talmadge died in December 1946 after being elected to his fourth term as governor, but before his inauguration. The latter is what led to Georgia’s “Three Governors Controversy” and ultimately ended up seeing Thompson seated as Georgia’s acting governor on 18 March 1947, pending a special election to be held in September 1948.
After being in office only 16-days, on 2 April 1947 Thompson formally followed-up on Jekyll Island Club President Prentice’s 3 October letter to inform Prentice Georgia was prepared to acquire the island through “condemnation or otherwise”. A meeting between Bill Jones — representing Prentice who was otherwise unable to attend — and Brunswick attorney Charles Gowen representing the State was held where the State was offering between $750,000 and $800,000 $12.5-million to 13.3-million in 2025 $’s for the island. However, Jones had been pre-advised by Prentice to accept nothing less than $1,000,000 $16.6-million in 2025 $’s, putting an end to the discussions.
The Condemnation Process Begins on 3 June and is Completed on 7 October 1947
Additional meetings were held in New York and Atlanta with offers and counter-offers between 28 April and 19 May. Still being unable to reach an amicable agreement, on 3 June 1947 Governor Thompson set the wheels in motion to begin the state’s condemnation proceedings in order to obtain the island through eminent domain.
In a twist of historic irony, the Glynn County Superior Court Clerk at the time the condemnation process took place and named on the cover sheet of the court documents was Henry F. DuBignon, great grandson of Christophe DuBignon, the first individual private owner of Jekyll Island 17. DuBignon issued an announcement cited by various newspapers around the country that the Georgia Attorney General’s Office had filed the documents the started the formal process on 6 June 1947.
Note 17: Henry’s grandfather was Col. Henry Charles DuBignon and his father was Joseph DuBignon. It was his father’s brother and Henry F. DuBignon‘s uncle, John Eugene DuBignon, who sold Jekyll Island with all improvements and livestock thereon to the Jekyll Island Club Corporation on 17 February 1886 for $125,000 ~$4.3-million in 2025$’s. By that time, Jekyll Island had been in the hands of the DuBignon family since 1794, first with fractional ownership before acquiring the entire island on 14 October 1800.
The court case began on 26 June 1947 in Glynn County Superior Court and throughout the process Jekyll Island remained under the oversight of the Sea Island Company. During the hearing, the Club’s attorneys were instructed not to argue the Club’s case and to ensure they did nothing to interfere with the state’s effort to condemn the island, and only ensure the Club receive a fair price.
It was on 7 October 1947 when the final court decreed condemnation order valued at $675,000 $9.8-million in 2025 $’s was issued, despite its appraised value of $850,000 $12.3-million in 2025 $’s. The decree finalized the State of Georgia’s acquisition of Jekyll Island and all improvements thereon, i.e., the cottages, the San Souci Apartments, the Clubhouse and all other Club structures and amenities.
Governor Thompson was pleased that they were able to secure the island for the same amount Governor Arnall had floated as an offer a year earlier. I also suspect, Bill Jones and Prentice were pleased to be rid of the ongoing costs of sustaining the island, without a clear business case to make it viable for their needs and interests in the future.
The Accounting and the Aftermath
Less back-taxes owed by the Club, a net total of $153,353 $2.2 million in 2025 $’swas paid to the Club for distribution to the nine remaining stockholding members. The two members who still held the titles to their cottages were Lawrence Condon, who received $60,000 $869,187 in 2025 $’s for Villa Marianna — which in 2025 dollars cost $547,859 to build in 1928 — and Margaret Maurice who received $20,000 $289,729 in 2025 $’s for Hollybourne Cottage — which in 2025 dollars cost $674,495 to build in 1890.
Again, like most luxury expenses, the resources spent on their private club affiliations, activities and ‘vacation homes’ by the successful and wealthy founders of the Jekyll Island Club were drawn from disposable income, and not necessarily looked at as an investment that would ever yield a significant return. M.E. Thompson’s detractors and, and in particular Herman Talmadge, accused him of making a sketchy deal with wealthy Northerners eager to get rid of a“white elephant 18”.
Note 18: From Wikipedia, “a possession that its owner cannot dispose of without extreme difficulty, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness”. Put more bluntly, something that is a waste of money, because it is completely useless: Talmage saw it for what it was.
The Acquisition of Jekyll Island Has It Supporters and Detractors
It’s noteworthy that history now reflects Georgia Governor M.E. Thompson’s accomplishments during his tumultuous two-years as Georgia’s governor to include increasing State spending without new taxes on various things, e.g., raising teachers’ salaries, increasing spending for education, expanding the roads and bridges building program, and improving the state’s park system. However, he personally considered his greatest accomplishment to have been the state’s acquisition of Jekyll Island.
Governor M.E. Thompson’s vision of a State Park was quickly altered soon after his two-year term ended and the son of Georgia’s infamous “Wild Man from Sugar Creek – Governor Eugene Talmadge, Herman Talmadge took office.
As he did when he ran against M.E. Thompson in 1948, Governor Herman Talmage still saw Jekyll Island as a financial drain on the State and quickly set-about to move it from being a State Park in the traditional sense as‘ public lands’ managed in the best-interest and for the long-term benefit of the average citizens to a quasi-public corporation. Beginning in 1949, Governor Talmage advocated leasing as much of the island’s operations to private entities who would provide the Sate with a steady revenue stream, incentivized by the potential profits they could made from the State Park.
It was on 13 February 1950 when Governor Talmage achieved his goal as Georgia’s General Assembly passed and enacted the Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act that effectively removed Jekyll Island from the State Park system and installed the Jekyll Island State Park Authority (JIA) to administer the leases and operation of the park by the private third party lease holders.
Within a year, Jekyll Island was closed to the public on 10 September 1951 while the State and newly coined JIA wrestled with creating land-access to the island. Moreover, it was during this same time when the JIA set-about trying to make Jekyll Island’s environmentally fragile dunes and beaches a more resort-like attraction for tourists by doing the unimaginable — at least by today’s standards — and doing permanent environmental damage while also spawning conflicts of interest and political scandals when the State Park was reopened on 11 December 1954.
Ten-years after then Governor M.E. Thompson lead the effort by the State of Georgia to acquire Jekyll Island — referred to by his political opponents and detractors also as Thompson’s Folly — it was during then Governor Marvin Griffin’s 15 January 1957 State of the State address to a joint session of the Georgia State Legislature 19 where he noted the following in regard to Jekyll Island after the JIA was installed by Talmadge to manage the State Park like a business in 1950.
Note 19: It’s noteworthy that by the time Governor Griffin gave his State of the State in 1957, the JIA had been under fire for mismanagement and political cronyism amid various observations and accusations that were backed-up by an investigation commissioned by the Governor to determine what the best path forward was.
“Still with us is the perennial problem of what to do with Jekyll Island. I opposed its acquisition in the first instance because the State has no business running a beach resort. But it has been my view that since we have it we should make the best out of it we can.
The wisest course the State could follow would be to divest itself of this property if the approximate cost could be recouped.
I will not approve the expenditure of any more money for this undertaking except that appropriated to protect what the State has invested or to render it serviceable to the public.
Should the General Assembly evolve a plan for administration of the island removed from the cross-fire of factional politics, the effort will have my support.
It is my recommendation that residential or business lots should be leased or sold in fee simple.
Beach and other day-use areas should be reserved permanently for public use.“
1948-1951, The On-Going Struggle Between Being a State Park and a Resort
From the very start, there has been a push-pull relationship in achieving a balance between maintaining the island’s unique, undeveloped ecosystem and the desire to develop the island in a way that can produce the revenue needed to meet the requirement to be financially self-sustaining.
In the 1950 JIA Authority Act, it was stipulated that not more than 35% of the land above median high-tide be developed, which was lifted to 50% in 1953 and went uncorrected until 1971 when it was restored to 35%, by which time it had not yet been exceeded.
Given the challenges of managing the island’s constantly changing size and arguments over the inclusion of the tidal marshlands, in 2014 the 35% cap on development known as the 35/65 rule was changed by law and is now set at a fixed number of 1,675 acres that can be developed. Of those 1,675 acres, less than 78 acres remained as of 2014 when the fixed number was adopted. Of those, the stipulated 12 acres had already been developed in the on-going expansion of the Jekyll Island Campground 20.
Note 20: The 18-acre, Cherokee Campground opened by partners Julius Boswick and Wayne Morrow from Thomaston, Georgia in 1958. It was renamed Jekyll Island Campground in 1990 after the JIA declined to renew Morrow‘s lease in 1984, and took-over the management of the site in 1988 following an out of court settlement..
Throughout the JIA’s history — recalling the earlier reference to the JIA having a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ like split personality with regard to the island’s management, independent development efforts, and relationships with private developers — the JIA has when convenient tried to distance itself from Georgia’s State Park System by citing both its role as an ‘Authority‘ and the financial self-sustaining mandate.
However, the Georgia Code defines ‘Park‘ as, ‘present and future parks, parkways, park and recreational resources and facilities of the State or any department, agency or institution of the state, and any such facility constituting part of the State Parks System and shall specifically include Jekyll Island State Park.’ The latter was added after time-and-again the various incarnations of the JIA would, on one hand claim it was exempt from Georgia’s statues and codes as they pertain to State Parks when it suited their desires, and on the other invoke its status as a State Park when it suited its needs.
Excavation of the Riverside Nine-Hole and Great Dunes Back-Nine Golf Courses
The 1951 Robert & Company Master Plan
Jekyll Creek Lift-Bridge is Finally Opened
As Expected, Land-Access Triggers a Twenty-Year Building Boom
December 1954 – the 1960’s, The Dykes Island Era of the Jekyll Island State Park
Georgia’s Director of the ‘Georgia Historic Sites Survey’ Alters the Downward Slide
While some of the aspects of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel are covered in greater detail regarding the State Era further down in A Deeper Dive Into The State-Owned Era: 1947 to 1980, it’s appropriate to address the center-piece that has made Jekyll Island the icon it became and remains.
In this following section I’ve attempted to provide a somewhat higher-level look at some of the key elements that shaped the development of Jekyll Island State Park and, in particular, activity related to the historic Club Era Jekyll Island Clubhouse that sat at the center of the Historic District.
The October 1947 Acquisition of the Island & March 1948 Opening of the State Park
When the State of Georgia under then Governor Thompson acquired Jekyll Island in October 1947, it’s acquisition included all improvements made thereon made by the Jekyll Island Club and its members over the past 61-years. This included include the Victorian-Era Club House that is now known as the Jekyll Island Club Resort, the San Souci Apartments, and the surrounding Historic District with its remaining eleven 21 of the fifteen Club member-built cottages and 31 other Club-era buildings as well as all of the recreational assets to include the golf courses.
Note 21: The four cottages that had been lost by 1947 included the Baker’s Soltera by fire in 1914, the Gould’s Chichota in 1941, as well as the Brown and Fairbank Cottages in 1944 that had been conveyed to and razed by the Club. A fifth, the Furness Cottage, had been repurposed and relocated as an infirmary by Frank Goodyear Jr. between October 1929 and January 1931.
After acquiring the island and structures, necessary repairs were made to the Clubhouse and grounds such that on 5 March 1948 the island was briefly opened to the public as a State Park through 10 September 1951.
An evening dinner celebration was held in the Grand Dining Room of the Jekyll Island Club that marked the official opening for the intrepid visitors who took Robert E. Lee steam boat to the island, remembering the causeway and first lift-bridge would not be completed and the island re-opened for public access for nearly six-years on 11 December 1954.
1948 – 1950, Jekyll Island State Park Becomes a Quasi-Public Corporation
To recap, Governor M.E. Thompson’s vision of Jekyll Island State Park was quickly altered after his short, two-year term in office ended when Herman Talmadge defeated Governor Thompson in Georgia’s Special Gubernatorial Election held on 2 November 1948. Talmadge was sworn in as Georgia’s governor two-weeks and a day later on 17 November 1948.
Governor Talmadge’s vision was for business lease-holders to run, manage and provide the the State with a steady revenue stream, incentivized by the potential profits they could made operating businesses on the State Park and quickly set-about to move Jekyll Island from being operated as one of Georgia’s State Parks and, instead, be operated as a quasi-public corporation that would lease as much of the island’s operations to private entities.
Governor Tallmadge initiated his vision in early 1949 by announcing the Jekyll Island State Park was bankrupting the Georgia’s State Parks Department. In response, the Georgia State Legislature passed a resolution in February 1949, appointing a committee to decide what should be done with Jekyll Island and issued a solicitation of bids for the proposed operation of Jekyll Island State Park and the Jekyll Island Club Hotel.
A total of five bids were received in mid-April 1949, the highest was submitted by J.O. Hice of St. Simons Island who offered a minimum guarantee of $12,032 $163,784 in 2025 $’s per quarter / $48,128 $655,139 in 2025 $’s per year, or 14% of the park’s gross receipts, whichever was greater. However, Hice’s bid failed to include a certified check for the amount of his first quarter’s bid amount per the solicitation’s regulations, and after consultation with Georgia’s State Auditor B.E. Thrasher and the State Attorney General Eugene Cook, Hice’s bid was disqualified on both technical and legal grounds.
The second-highest bid was submitted by Barney B. Whitaker, Sr., a hotel operator from Augusta, Georgia, who declined to provide a minimum dollar-based guarantee, but did guarantee the State 20% of the park’s gross receipts, so long as the State would carry the fire insurance premium costs for the Jekyll Island State Park property. To secure his bid, Whitaker included a cashier’s check for $2,000 $27,146 in 2025 $’s, as a good faith gesture to be applied as a credit if awarded the lease.
Based on State Auditor Thrasher’s review of the Park’s previous four-to-five month season’s gross receipts totaling more than $100,000 $1,357,344 in 2025 $’s he believed Whitaker’s proposal could net the State between $15,000 and $20,000 $203,601 and $271,468 in 2025 $’s or more. The other three bids were well below both Hice and Whitaker’s, so the first lease to operate the State Park and renamed Jekyll Island Hotel was granted to Whitaker on 10 May 1949 22.
May 1949 – January 1951, The Whitaker Era of the Jekyll Island State Park & Jekyll Island Hotel’s Operation
Although operating Jekyll Island State Park became a financial burden, Barney Whitaker, his wife Mary and members of their family 23 kept the Island accessible to the public and operating smoothly from the time they arrived ‘lock, stock and Buick’ —brought to the island by barge, along with their loaded-downboat and trailer — in late Spring 1949.
Note 23: As a personal, interesting aside, Barney’s Son Robert H. “Bob” Whitaker was an aeronautical engineer and flight control specialist for Lockheed-Georgia in Marietta, GA, from 1954 to his retirement in 1988. At one point in our respective careers at Lockheed — mine was from 1986 to 2018 — I believe we crossed paths. I did not know about his family connection to Jekyll Island until I began this research project.
The following year on 13 February 1950, Georgia’s General Assembly passed and enacted the Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act, introduced by Governor Talmage. The Act effectively removed Jekyll Island from the State Park system and installed the Jekyll Island State Park Authority (JIA) to administer the leases and operation of the park by private, third party lease holders like Whitaker. It was also on on 13 February 1950 when Barney Whitaker’s lease on the State Park and Jekyll Island Hotel and oversight of his operations was passed to the newly formed Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) that assumed overall control of the island and further development.
The initial JIA development plans were also approved in February 1950 that called for the Jekyll Island State Park to be transformed essentially into a resort. The plans included installing a dock at the end of the soon to be completed Jekyll Island Causeway 24 that tied into Georgia Route 50 and ended at the western side of the Jekyll Creek to greatly reduce the time and distance needed for guests to be ferried from the mainland to the Jekyll Island Wharf and Pier. It also called for erecting a lift-bridge to achieve direct access via road to the mainland. However, neither would be completed on their very optimistic schedules due to both political and the associated funding issues.
Note 24: Also sometimes referred to as the Latham Hammock Causeway, and what is commonly known as the Jekyll Island Causeway that provides land-access from U.S. Route 17 / GA Route 520 / Ga Route 25 to the M.E. Thompson Memorial Bridge and to Ben Fortson Parkway, was officially renamed the Downing E. Musgrove Causeway on 15 April 1996.
Fast forward to the end date of Whitaker’s lease in January 1951, after losing between $25,000 and $30,000 $310,623 and $372,747 in 2025 $’s while holding up his terms of the lease, it became somewhat obvious the JIA was not going to renew Whitaker’s lease in January 1951.
Despite JIA assurances to Whitaker that the State would provide land-access to the Island by the end of 1950 and failed to do so, Whitaker kept the island as well as the hotel and amenities open and operating smoothly before his lease was not renewed by the JIA, somewhat foreshadowing that land-access was still far-off.
The Whitakers returned to Augusta, Georgia, where they resumed their operation of the Clarendon Hotel on Broad Street and opened the B&W Cafeteria that in just one year grew to a $200,000 $2.4-million in 2025 $’s per year operation, while the JIA attempted to operate the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and manage Jekyll Island State Park as a resort.
State-Funded Work Continues Elsewhere on the Island
The parts of the JIA’s development plan that were completed in 1950 included either repairing or destroying many of the Jekyll Island Club’s dilapidated, secondary support structures built in the late 1880’s through early 1900’s.
In 1951, a convict camp was established on the Island and the prisoners were housed in the former Club dairy on Plantation Road that sat in the middle of the Jekyll Island‘s River Side nine-hole golf course designed by Will Dunn.
The convict camp and prisoners were placed under the direction of JIA’s Jekyll Island State Park superintendent Hoke Smith and tasked with creating fire breaks in the tidal forests, building a sawmill to support the lumbering operations on the island, digging drainage canals, building a new perimeter road 25 that linked together and improved upon the Club Era roads such as River and Oglethorpe Roads along the west side, and Morgan and Howland Roads and the various “bicycle and bridle paths” along the east side that circumnavigated the island.
Note 25: Eventually being renamed Riverview and Beachview Drives as development on the island progressed.
The prisoners later cleared lots for houses in the first of the five housing developments outlined in the 1951 Roberts and Company, Jekyll Island Master Plan, as well as lots for the first motels that would eventually be built in the late 1950’s.
Land Access is the Key to the Further Development of Jekyll Island by the JIA
It was land-access that was essential to support on-island staff, enable cost-effective construction to include new recreational facilities and residential homes, attract private hospitality-industry businesses and their employees, as well as to attract potential island residents to fuel the development of on-island, leased homesites.
The Jekyll Island Master Plan also called for a conference center, recreational facilities as well as shopping and service centers that would ultimately generate the necessary number of day visitors, overnight guests, as well as season and year-round residents on the island to make it economically viable enough to achieve the revenue needed to meet the requirement to be financially self-sustaining and, over-time, to become a source of revenue for the State.
And, now with a focus on development, while the 1950 JIA Authority Act initially incorporated the stipulation that not more than 35% of the land above high-tide could be developed, the State Legislature at the request of the JIA modified saw fit to lift the 35% ceiling to 50% in 1953 26.
Note 26: Thankfully, the original 1950 JIA Authority Act 35% ceiling was restored by the State Legislature in 1971 before it had been exceeded and ensuring 65% of the island would remain undisturbed, As detailed in Sidebar 3 in the Introduction, for those who may not know, the cap on development of Jekyll Island is now set at a fixed number of 1,675 acres, of which less than 78 acres that could still be developed remained as of 2014 when the fixed number was adopted into Georgia State Law.
However, that’s not to suggest many of the JIA’s development projects as well as State and Federally initiated changes to increase the ‘navigability‘ of rivers feeding into the St. Simons Channel and then the dredging of the St. Simons Channel and adjacent waterways that began in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s have not done irreparable damage to Jekyll Island’s ecosystem; they have.
1948 – 1950, The Construction of the Jekyll Island Causeway and Lift Bridge
It was in May 1948 when the first contracts were issued for construction of the 7-mile-long Jekyll Island Causeway / extension of Georgia Route 50 27 across Latham Hammock to the Jekyll Creek. There was also the matter of connecting the Jekyll Island Causeway to Georgia Route 50 to ensure the Brunswick to St. Simons Causeway was integrated into the land-bridge to Jekyll Island.
Note 27: At this point, the building of the Sydney Lanier bridge and redirecting U.S. Route 17 across the Turtle River and tying into Georgia Route 50, now known as Georgia Route 520 that terminates at the end of Ben Fortson Parkway on Jekyll Island, was only on State and Federal Highway Department drafting boards.
The causeway’s construction was delayed several times by dredging and road stability issues that caused the original completion date to slip 18-months from 1 May 1949 — the date announced by Governor Talmage on 19 June 1948 — until its official dedication that took place on 4 November 1950.
Built at a cost of $2,000,000 $26.8-million in 2025 $’sin State and matching Federal funds over 30 months, the Jekyll Island Causeway across Latham Hammockonly brought motorists to the edge of Jekyll Creek, 1,100-feet short of Jekyll Island awaiting funding and installation of a vertical-lift bridge to connect the causeway to Jekyll Island State Park.
Once again, issues related to construction, ownership, operation, and financing delayed the project an additional year, as the announced opening of the bridge by May 1949 comes and goes. It would be another two years before the solicitation for bids to build the bridge was released on 7 March 1951. However, when the bids were received the following summer, the project was once again delayed another year due to material shortages caused by the Korean Conflict.
September 1951, The State of Georgia Suspends Public Access to Jekyll Island
Due to mounting costs to the State, it was during the summer of 1951 when the JIA and State of Georgia decided it would not be economically feasible to continue operating the Jekyll Island State Park until such time as the bridge was completed and opened, and on 10 September 1951 suspended public access to Jekyll Island.
It’s important to remember, these were the same costs that had been absorbed by Barney Whitaker while he waited for the State to provide the promised and essential land-access via the Jekyll Island Causeway and lift-bridge that had never been built. Whitaker fully understood this when he was granted the lease on the Jekyll Island Club Hotel on 10 May 1949 and likely would have not entered into the lease if he knew the Jekyll Island Causeway and at least an small dock to support interim ferry service between the completed causeway and the Jekyll Island Wharf wouldn’t even be provided, never mind the promised lift-bridge by the end of 1951.
While much work would still take place by the State on the island while it was closed to the public, it was clear the island and Jekyll Island State Park would remain closed to the public until such time as funding and construction of the lift-bridge over the Jekyll Creek could be completed.
Without easier access and increased visitor traffic to Jekyll Island State Park, it was simply economically-impossible to fully staff the State Park to keep it open and operating while meeting the stated objective of Governor Talmadge’s 1950 JIA Authority Act to be self-sustaining as it developed the island as a public park and resort… with emphasis on “as a resort” related to the aforementioned Jekyll and Hyde similarities of the JIA’s operations over the years.
It wouldn’t be until three years and three months later on 11 December 1954 when the Jekyll Creek lift-bridge was finally completed, operational and ready to begin supporting regular traffic that the Jekyll Island State Park would re-open to the public.
Excavation of the Riverside Nine-Hole and Great Dunes Back-Nine Golf Courses
While the State Park was closed, in the early 1950’s two-miles of the beach dunes along the eastern coast of the island from where the current Beachview Hotel at the north-end of the coastline and the Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island are located— some as high as 40′ — were excavated and leveled using earth moving equipment that had been brought to the island, as were the back-nine holes of the island’s1927 Great Dunes golf course. This was the same fate befell the1898 Riverside Nine-Hole Course originally located on the western coast of the island near the current airport — one of the oldest golf courses in the United States–– where its soil was used to rebuild the roadbed of the original River Road, renamed Riverview Drive in the State Era.
The JIA’s objective was effectively leveling the shoreline so once motorists could access the island, they’d be able to drive on the recently completed Perimeter Road and be able to see the beach and ocean, purportedly thought by the JIA to be an aesthetic improvement that would attract more visitors once the bridge was completed and, in turn, the Jekyll Island State Park was re-opened to the public.
The soil and sand removed from the dunes and back-nine of the Great Dunes golf course were used to help bolster the Jekyll Creek earthen embankment, and repair or also build-up roads leading from the causeway to places on the island or along other island roads.
The 1951 Robert & Company Master Plan
Per an earlier recommendation from JIA Board of Director J.D. Compton, President of the Sea Island Company on St. Simons Island, it was in 1951 when the JIA commissioned a master plan be produced for the island by Robert & Company to set forth how infrastructure like roads, commercial and residential development would be executed on Jekyll Island, to ensure compliance with the JIA Act and provisions for limiting development to only 35% of the land above the mean water level at high tide.
Curiously, following the 1951 release of the Robert & Company Master Plan, in 1953 the Georgia Legislature amended the JIA Act to increase the amount of land that could be developed from 35% to 50%, which immediately gave rise to future concerns regarding over-development of Jekyll Island.
It took until 1971 for the language in the JIA Act to be restored to the original 35% threshold for development, and was subsequently changed from the 35/65 rule to a maximum threshold for land development on Jekyll Island to a more easily determined fixed number of no greater than 1,675 acres in 2014.
It was finally on 11 December 1954 after the taxpayer-funded, $1.0-million $13.4-million in $2025 $’s Jekyll Creek lift-bridge was opened that provided the needed land-access to the island. The ease of access was essential for those who worked on the island as well as all commerce, the essential visitors to the island and hotel, more cost-effective development and expansion of the ‘resort’ amenities and establishment of permanent, residential communities for year-round island operations, revenue and commerce.
As Expected, Land-Access Triggers a Twenty-Year Building Boom
This came as the JIA had shifted its attention away from the historically-significant Jekyll Island Club ‘Historic District’ and became fully-engaged in developing the permanent resident and resort-related aspects of the Jekyll Island State Park’s“self-sustaining” revenue stream in earnest in the 1950’s through early 1970’s.
The JIA developed five different residential neighborhoods with over 300 leased dwelling lots in the mid-1950s, while also leasing lots to the the first ‘modern‘ motels 28 in 1958, as well as extensive commercially-focused development of the eastern, oceanside of Jekyll Island. The goal appeared to be to convert the State Park into a modern resort destination to help draw more visitors and revenue to the island.
Note 28 A hotel is a multi-story building with interior room entrances and amenities like restaurants and higher-tier services whereas a motel — originally called “motor hotels” — are smaller, one or two-story buildings offering fewer and more basic amenities where the rooms are accessed via exterior entrances for easy access from parking lots without going through a lobby. The first motor hotel was the ‘Milestone Mo-Tel,’ opening on 12 December 1925 in San Luis Obispo, California, strategically positioned a day’s drive from San Francisco and a day’s drive from Lost Angeles along U.S. Highway Route 101.
It was during this “spend and build phase” of the Jekyll Island State Park’s development that followed the island being reopened to the public when the JIA began execution of the 1951 Roberts and Company, Jekyll Island Master Plan in earnest with the construction of new motels beginning in the 1960’s, improving food services as well as other resort amenities like the Aquarama and adjacent conference center, recreational facilities and shopping center built in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, something of an early development of what was redeveloped over the past decade into the current “Beach Village”.
December 1954 – the 1960’s, The Dykes Island Era of the Jekyll Island State Park
As Jekyll Island prepared to re-open, the new leaseholder initially unbeknownst to the JIA was Georgia State Senator Jimmy Dykes from Cochran, Georgia. Dykes who had already been actively receiving road construction contracts for the island with his Acme Paving Company was initially the silent, unnamed primary investor behind a new firm from Cochran called Jekyll Island Hotels, Incorporated that Dykes initially claimed he was unaffiliated with when asked by the JIA.
Dykes would hold his Jekyll Island leases through 1960. It took nearly a decade for the JIA force Dykes out in 1960 as the hotel and island third-party operator “for cause” unrelated to the operation of the hotel and, instead, it was yet another firm he’d quietly founded call the Jekyll Insurance Corporation, which was engaged in Jekyll Island real estate and cottage rentals below the JIA’s radar.
It was during this nearly decade-long period of time when these and various other issues developed associated with Dykes business activities at the State Park, to include his unusually high claimed and State reimbursable-costs for maintenance of upkeep of the now 74-year-old hotel, as well as allegations of corruption associated with other contracts he and/or family members were granted that earned the Jekyll Island State Park the nickname of ‘Dykes Island’.
The Jekyll Island Hotel and State Park lease would subsequently pass through several different operators who all encountered significant financial challenges with keeping the island and hotel operating, while it continued to fall into disrepair with mounting financial losses. It was in 1969 when the mounting costs and facilities maintenance costs would cause the JIA to begin the process of closing-down the Jekyll Island Hotel and adjacent Historic District structures in late 1971. The Jekyll Island Hotel would remain abandoned and not cared-for, maintained nor even secured for over a decade.
Georgia’s Director of the ‘Georgia Historic Sites Survey’ Alters the Downward Slide
Curiously, it was on 15 June 1971 when the first application to place one of Jekyll Island State Park’s historically significant sites — the Horton-DuBignon House/ Brewery Ruins, and DuBignon Cemetery — on the National Register of Historic Places was prepared and submitted by William R. Mitchell Jr., the Director of the Georgia Historical Commission’s Georgia Historical Sites Survey based in Atlanta, Georgia. It was subsequently placed into nomination the following day by the State Liaison Officer for the National Park Service, received by the National Park Service on 21 June 1971, and officially placed on the National Register of Historic Places on 28 Sept 1971.
Mitchell was was a career historian and the Georgia Historical Commission’s Staff Historian from 1964 to 1973, and went on to take the position as Executive Director at Historic Augusta, Inc. in 1974. Mitchell apparently established and managed the National Register of Historic Places program in Georgia and served as the first Director of the Georgia Historic Sites Survey during his tenure.
What follows is a deeper-dive into more of the details of the State-Era. I’ve attempted to address the highlights by year and with sub-sections, so as not to overwhelm the reader or be overly redundant to what I’ve already included in the Introduction, as a lot has taken place that needs to be put into chronological order and context.
I’ve also used a “then and now” approach to either making reference to showing how original buildings and areas evolved over time or at least offering a footnote on its future state vs. using a pure chronological format so that readers won’t need to go and search for either past or future tense information, at least where it made sense to me, e.g., the motel and hotel summaries and evolution… at least for the time being.
October 1947 – 1948: Georgia Transforms the Island into a State Park
The State of Georgia, having acquired Jekyll Island on 7 October 1947 when the final court decree was issued, begins to transform Jekyll Island from what was a now nearly vacant private luxury club into a State Park.
Prior to 7 October 1947, the State of Georgia only owned three miles of Georgia’s 110-miles coastline; it now held four-times that much when it added Jekyll Island’s nine miles of unspoiled beaches. Moreover, it had a lush maritime forest, as well as the Marshes of Glynn immortalized by Sidney Lanier’s poem and a wide range of unusual wildlife.
Getting the State Park Ready to Open
Moss Cottage in Spring 1948
The Clubhouse, Annex, San Souci Apartments, eleven private cottages, employee homes and dormitories, support buildings, roads, bicycle paths and amenities like golf courses and tennis courts — some of which remained in use and were cared-for between 1942 and June 1947 –– had nonetheless been somewhat consumed by nature and the elements, and were in need of attention. Also needed was a plan to transform them for use as State Park housing and support facilities by visitors and State personnel with Jekyll’s nine-miles of white sand beaches as the primary attraction.
The Georgia State Park System Attempts to Manage Jekyll Island
Initially managed under the Georgia State Park system, Jekyll Island State Park struggled as the resources needed as well as the skills to plan, restore, build, improve and staff a ‘beach resort’ were as its detractors had stated: all in short supply. Georgia did not have the experience nor resources needed to successfully establish and operate a beach resort.
The Club Compound with its Clubhouse, hotel, Annex, San Souci Apartments and cottages would be used for overnight lodging of visitors, housing State Park personnel and others who would be working to prepare the island and its many amenities beyond the compound for visitors.
The contract for managing the Clubhouse/Hotel and overseeing the readiness and use of the 350-400 rooms on the Island was awarded to Thomas Briggs, Jr., a seasoned hotel owner who hired a professional staff.
When the State acquired the Clubhouse and other buildings it also purchased most of the Club-owned furnishings, dinnerware, and the like, with smaller items ‘disappearing’ as guests left and also caused more than a few employees to be dismissed.
In charge of the overall transformation project was Georgia State Parks director Charlie Morgan, with Harry Glenn Jr. appointed as superintendent responsible for daily operations with a staff of 90, to include tradesmen, a recreation director, lifeguards, watchmen, a nurse and a policeman.
By early November 1947, road-grading equipment and a 15-man road crew were on the island restoring and improving the roads. Although assembling a convict work-crew of up to 150 was considered early-on, the task of attending to repairs, paint and other tasks to prepare the hotel, San SouciApartments, cottages and other building was given to contractors and professional tradesmen.
In early 1948, a small crew of 30 white convicts with six corrections guards were temporarily brought to the island to attend to landscaping on the grounds, golf course and elsewhere as needed on the island to ready it for its grand opening in early March 1948.
The North-End Beach Pavillion and Bathhouse Replaces the Great Dunes Tee House
One of the first new structures to be built by the State was the the new $60,000 $806,579 in 2025 $’s dual-purpose golf clubhouse and beach pavilion / casino and bathhouse where the Tee House that sat between the 1st tee of the original nine-hole Oceanside Golf Course and the 10th tee when it gained a back-nine in 1927 at which time it became known as the Great Dunes golf course.
More specifically, the Tee House sat up and behind the dunes and just to the north of the original Shell Road where the current Tortuga Jacks is now located and still incorporates the 1948 golf clubhouse and beach pavilion / casino and bathhouse 29 that has been converted over the years into it’s banquet room.
Note 29: Since I’ve been unable to find a photo of the original 1948 Beachouse Pavilion and Bathhouse before it was modified, I’ve included the above photos taken in the early-1950’s for context. By this time, the Perimeter Road — now Beachview Drive — had been finished and paved, and the dunes had been removed and leveled by heavy equipment. These photos show southwest and northwest views of the building, whose circular drop-off driveway is adjacent to what was the north side of the original Shell Road, and is now part of the beach access point and Tortuga Jack’s parking lot, across Beachview Drive from Peppermint Land at Jekyll Island Mini Golf.
The Tee House was a rest stop for golfers, a place for Club members to relax while their spouses played golf, as well as to just come and relax while overlooking the ocean without needing to go down to the beach. In the latter years of the Club, motion picture movies were shown at the Tee House in the evenings.
As for the original Shell Road 30, it took Club members directly to the beach from the Club Compound where there were dressing rooms to the south, and a small enclosed playroom & slide for children to the north.
Note 30: The image above left image shows the where the Club Era Shell Road ended at the beach between the dressing rooms (left) and playhouse (right) atop the dunes. The above image at right shows a view of the northwest corner of the Tee House which was further back and north behind the playhouse and higher on the shore between the front and back-nine of the Great Dunes golf course, when the older dunes that made up the 1940’s shoreline were much higher.
Making Jekyll Island Accessible by Land: The Causeway
In January 1948, the Georgia Legislature approved the building of the essential causeway over Colonel’s Island and Lathan Hammock and filed a request with the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads for matching funds. The estimated cost of the earthen causeway, less the vertical-lift bridge still needed to get motorists across Jekyll Creek, was $2,000,000 $26,885,975in 2025$’s, half of which was to be provided out the Georgia State Highway Department’s budget 31.
Note 31: In terms of the disparity in the 1944 Sea Island Company estimate to create a causeway and bridge to Jekyll and those in 1948, not having found an historic reference to the explanation for the major cost disparity, I’ll venture a guess that before the State acquired Jekyll Island and the Gould estate still owned Latham Hammock, installing a causeway and bridge on private land was a far less costly endeavor than it became once it was state-owned, public land subject to a wide variety of State and Federal road, bridge and other related building codes and a wide variety of other State and Federal regulations.
Sidebar 6: Land Access to Jekyll Island and Route 17
Having now looked at the history of Route 17 passing through Glynn County, I’m left to believe “timing was everything”. While this Sidebar is somewhat out of chronological order, it does play into part of why it took as long as it did to connect Jekyll Island to the mainland in a meaningful way via Route 17.
It was in May 1948 when the first contracts were let for construction of the 7-mile-long causeway across Latham-Hammock that will use the then-current and accepted practice of merely dredging the marshland on either side of what will become the causeway, and using the dredged-up material to build-up the causeway and support a roadbed.
The disruption of tidal movements or ecological impacts, never mind flooding and storm-surge implications were not things given due-consideration even in the 1940’s and 1950’s. There was also the matter of connecting the Jekyll Island Causeway 32 to US Route 17 to ensure the Brunswick to St. Simons Causeway was integrated into the land-bridge to Jekyll Island.
Note 32: The sometimes referred to Latham Hammock Causeway and later the Jekyll Island Causeway , it was renamed the Downing E. Musgrove Causeway on 15 April 1996 by the Georgia General Assembly in honor of Mr. Downing Musgrove who occupied many positions of public trust in Georgia including Clinch County solicitor, State Representative, Executive Secretary to the Governor, Comptroller General, and Revenue Commissioner.
The causeway’s construction was delayed several times by dredging and road stability issues that caused the original completion date to slip from the 1 May 1949 date announced by Governor Talmage on 19 June 1948, until its official dedication that finally took place on 4 November 1950.
Prior to the erection of the first Sidney Lanier bridge in 1956 — a vertical lift bridge that was similar to the first Jekyll Creek vertical lift bridge opened on 11 December 1954 — Route 17, also known as the Coastal Highway, had been routed through and around Brunswick in something of an S-shaped, 50-mile route on Georgia Route 303. By 1928, motorists were able to cross a bridge on the Turtle River further upstream, which is now the current Joseph B. Mercer Bridge.
Moreover, by the time the State had acquired Jekyll Island, plans had already been drawn-up that included rerouting Route 17 across a still to be built bridge over the lower Turtle River near Jekyll Island — the 1st Sidney Lanier lift-bridge in 1956 — and connect to GA 303 / US Route 27.
The 1956 Sidney Lanier lift-bridge was of a similar design as the eventual 1954 Jekyll Island Creek lift-bridge and after being struck and damaged twice by ships — the first on 7 November 1972 and the second on 3 May 1987 — was replaced with the current, cable-stayed Sidney Lanier Bridge built between 1997 and its opening on 26 June 2003.
So, while this is making a bit more sense, the accounting and the color of money used for these various road projects that ultimately resulted in the Jekyll Creek Causeway being built in 1950 and the Jekyll Creek lift-bridge opened on 11 December 1954 remains unclear, as does how much taxpayer revenue may have been unnecessarily consumed. Some additional insight into U.S. Highway construction in and around Brunswick, Georgia can be found here: US highway history and endpoints in the Brunswick, GA area
The State Park Opens to the Public on 1 March 1948
The State Park opened to the public on 1 March 1948, and the following was one of the ads placed in local papers and the 4 March Atlanta Constitution-Journal welcoming would-be visitors to an official opening on 5 March 1948.
Travel to the island including the daily ferry schedule for the paddlewheel steamboat, the ‘Robert E. Lee’ with three sailings to and from the island every day for a round-trip cost of $1.50 $20.16 in 2025 $’sper person.
Purportedly, strong northern winds arrived on 5 March keeping the Robert E. Lee tied-up at the Brunswick Harbor, but a smaller ship named the Bernice that could carry up to 100 passengers made two trips to the island in the morning, and by the afternoon all 400 available rooms on the island were occupied by guests.
There are two versions of what transpired when Jekyll Island State Park was officially opened to the public in March 1948:
In one version, the Atlanta Constitutions‘ Celestine Sibley wrote, the island opened “with no ceremony but near-capacity crowds for its hotel, Clubhouse, and cottages.”
In the other version, it was reported, “more than 350 intrepid guests paid $1.50 to board the “Robert E. Lee” steam-powered ferry boat and sail to Jekyll Island on Friday evening, 5 March 1948, for an official opening ceremony, dinner & dance at the Jekyll Island Clubhouse Grand Dining Room.”
The Clubhouse, hotel and Annex, 1948
However, what was consistent was the reported near-capacity crowds at its cottages, Clubhouse, and hotel, with rooms starting at $3.00 per night and cottages at $1.50 $40.33 & $20.16respectively in 2025’$’s, rates comparable to lodging at other State Parks.
In terms of what types of activities were available to visitors — even though most of the island’s roads and trails outside of the Club Compound and beach areas via Shell Road are overgrown and inaccessible — were consistent with what theJekyll Island Club’s members enjoyed before the Club closed for the last time on 5 April 1942, less the golf courses which were in serious disrepair.
Early guests were afforded access to Georgia’s first public beach, the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s swimming pools, tennis courts, a skeet shooting range, a bowling alley in the former Gould Entertainment House / Casino and adjacent indoor tennis court, as well as horseback riding, fishing, and boar hunting.
Meals in the Grand Dining Room were priced from $0.75 for breakfast to $2.50 for dinner, $10.08 to $33.61 in 2025 $’s and considered expensive by some. The Grand Dining Room was supplemented with a cafeteria that offered less-expensive, ala carte fare.
By the end of April 1948, more than 6,000 visitors had made day trips to the island in one single week, a testament to its popularity. Four large conferences with over 250-attendees each were held on the island in the spring and while during April the State Park barely broke even with a profit of a mere $35 $470.50in 2025 $’s, by the second quarter of 1948 its shows a net profit of $8,018 $107,785 in 2025 $’s, given the many constraints, especially the limited access to the island by water.
Solving the Problem of Getting to and Around on the Island
Work on creating a causeway and vertical-lift bridge over Jekyll Creek began by April 1948 and it was ‘hoped‘ that by May 1949 land access to the island would be possible.
In the interim, the steam-powered paddlewheel ‘Robert E. Lee’ owned by Leroy Simpkins of Augusta, Georgia would make the 45-minute trip by boat between Brunswick and Jekyll Island six times a day.
Simpkins also owned the Biscayne that initially provided exclusive ferry service between St. Simons as Jekyll Island, until former Jekyll Boat Captain Joe Spalding acquired a military surplus ship named the Neptune and ran a competing ferry service. Once again, trying to be a State Agency running a commercial business was the source of both perceived and real conflicts of interest and the ferry services were not immune.
Once visitors were on the island, an island bus service and Jeep rentals were available as well as motor scooters and bicycles for those who either needed transportation, or wanted to go and explore the 9.5-mile-long island. However, the former fleet of Red Bugs had been sold in the 1940s before the State acquired Jekyll Island and were no longer an available option.
For the more adventurous and those who could afford it, there was also Jekyll Aviation Air Taxi flying aircraft like this Piper Cub J-3 well before a grass airstrip was established in 1957.
The pilots would do as some of the Club Era members who were also pilots would do and operate off of the beach 33, most likely during low tide periods when the beach was far more expansive and after the retreating tide and left a very smooth, hard packed sand surface.
Note 33: In this photo of a Jekyll Aviation Piper Cub J-3 Air Taxi No. 3, the World War II era U.S. Army observations tower is still visible in the background. It was erected at the beach-end of Shell Road where it ended at the beach. It stood just beyond the new 1948 Beach Pavilion and Bathhouse that replaced the Club Era 1927 Tee House — also partially visible — and well before the dunes were excavated in 1952-1954.
Early Amenities Included Some of the Same the Former Club Members Enjoyed
In looking through photos taken at the Jekyll Island State Park in the early years of its operation in Tyler Bagwell’s “Images of America, Jekyll Island – A State Park”, everything looked to be kept-up as well as it had when it was a private club. Most of the photos include healthy-looking, predominantly younger adults and children enjoying the dining and dancing in the Clubhouse, playing croquet, evening gatherings at the Tee House on the beach, riding rented bicycles, and enjoying the beaches. Also included were photos of guests playing tennis —albeit the outdoor tennis courts were reported to be in dire need of attention — renting and riding horses, enjoying the Club swimming pool, etc., but its quite possible these particular surviving images were produced as marketing materials given their condition and clarity, never mind the subject matter.
When Jekyll Island State Park opened to the public for the first time on 1 March 1948, golf was not an option as none of the Club Era courses were suitable for play. The 1913 Oceanside Course, the 1928 Great Dunes Course, and the Donald J. Ross Club Golf Course were all overgrown, and it took years to get the sport re-established on the Island.
Sadly, the back-nine holes of the Great Dunes course were in such poor shape due to destructive wild boars and being overgrown, given the lack of sufficient funds to repair the greens, they were never restored as it was decided they were in such poor condition it wasn’t economically-feasible. Instead, they and most of the other natural dunes along what is now Beachview Drive were excavated and leveled during 1953 and 1954 while Jekyll Island State Park was closed to the public.
Moreover, the original 1898 9-hole ‘Riverside’ golf course located northwest of the Club Compound between Riverview and Old Plantation Roads —not exceptional in its day — was never restored and let to go, and then later excavated and leveled, and is where the Pinegrove and Old Plantation housing developments were eventually built.
The Pre-State Era Golf Courses of the Jekyll Island Club Era
Click on the Images Above to Open Larger Versions in New Windows
Sidebar 7: The Current Golf Courses at Jekyll Island State Park
Pulled from Various Difference Sources
The 1927 Great Dunes Course,originally the 1910 Oceanside / Club Course that opens for play in November 2025.
The just-renovated $13.5 million Great Dunes course that incorporates a portion of the former 1964 Oleander Course at Jekyll Island is an 18-hole, par 72 course that measures 7,014 yards long from the back tees. The course features a sand dune-littered landscape and sweeping ocean views, reflective of the 1928 Walter J. Travis front-nine of the Great Dunes course.
Reflective of the Island’s unique coastal terrain and wild-oat topped dunes, the Great Dunes’ nine-hole course prior to it current renovation was both simple, but difficult creating a challenging round of golf, even for just a nine-hole ‘executive’ course.
The originally the 1910 Oceanside or “Club” Course. was designed as the second Jekyll Island Club golf course by Donald Ross. It was intended to be a “new and improved” 16-hole course sitting just east of what is now the Historic District near the lakes on land that is now part of the 1922 Oleander Course. The site was a drained savannah that proved problematic as it would become inundated by water when it rained and only the first 9 of 16 holes next to what is now called the Great Dunes course were finished.
In 1913 Canadian golf pro Karl Keffer re-designed and built the 9-hole Oceanside Course to originally designed by Ross. In 1924, the Seaside or Oceanside Course became a testing ground for the USGA who evaluated and approved the recently designed steel clubs vs. the traditional hickory shafts as well as new ball size & density which changed the game of golf forever.
In 1926, the Club hired Walter J. Travis, a foremost golf professional, to refine the Keffer nine-hole course and add a new back-nine course to its south, on the north side of Shell Road. Travis declared he, “was enthusiastic over the prospects at [Jekyll] for one of the most beautiful courses in the country.” What came to be renamed the 18-hole Great Dunes course finished in 1927 opened for play in January of 1928.
Sadly, after the State of Georgia acquired the island, the JIA determined the back-nine holes were too badly damaged and neglected and had the entire area from south of old Shell Road — Tortuga Jacks current location — to the lot where the 1960 Corsair Motel was eventually located — now the Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island — excavated and leveled, and then some.
All that remained of the once famous course is the front nine, redesigned by Travis and recently renovated by the JIA as a unified 18-hole course, based on a new design incorporating land from the former 9-hole Walter Travis-designed course with land from the former Dick Wilson-designed Oleander Course.
1968 Pine Lakes Course
Originally built in 1968 and renovated in 2002, Pine Lakes is an 18-hole, 72 par course with a length of 6,701 yards when played from the back tees that winds through ocean forests and undisturbed marsh hammocks. Known as the Island’s family-oriented course, Pine Lakes was developed by designer Clyde Johnson to incorporate family-friendly tee boxes, making it one of the few courses in the nation that provides even playing ground for both adults and younger players.
1975 Indian Mound Course
Constructed in 1975, the Indian Mound Course was designed by Joe Lee and exhibits Lee’s signature fairway bunkers in precarious locations, buried in the Island’s tidal woodlands. It is the shortest of Jekyll’s 18-hole, 71 par courses at a length of 6,469 yard from the back tees, but still considered a challenging course, to include the 5-par holes.
The 1922 Ross / 1964 Jekyll Island Championship / 1975 Oleander Course
It was originally the 1909 / 1910 Ross Course intended to extend Ross’ 1910 Oceanside Course, redesigned in 1964 as the 18-hole Jekyll Island Championship, renamed the Oleander Course in 1975 before being closed in 2024 and integrated into the new, 2025 18-hole Great Dunes Course.
” A “new and improved” 18-hole course, originally designed by Donald J. Ross just east of what is now the Historic District, was partially built in 1909 / 1910 near inland lakes on land that was part of Jekyll Island’sOleander Course. It’s originally planned back-nine holes on the west side of the lakes were never completed due to irrigation issues and and lost to time.
The 1910 Ross nine-hole and 1910 Oceanside Course although designed separately, as were the 1913 nine-hole Keffer Course, could be combined and played as an 18-hole course. However, the 1910 Ross Course is one that was mired in issues with irrigation, flooding and turf issue, never mind being designed with both a nine-hole and eighteen-hole version which are oftentimes confused. The consensus seems to be only a nine-hole course with two extra holes for recreational play was built.
The 1910 Ross Course was eventually consumed by the redevelopment and portions of the land became part of the 1964 Dick Wilson-designed Jekyll Island “18-Hole, par 72 couse measuring 6,521 yard from the back tees known as the Jekyll Island Championship Course that as noted above, was recently renovated by the JIA as part of a unified 18-hole course in 2024 and 2025, based on a new design incorporating land from the former 9-hole 1913 Karl Keffer Seaside course / surviving front-nine of the Walter Travis re-designed 1928 Great Dunes course.
Brian Ross has been in the golf business long enough to have worked on many of courses with plenty of talented designers. Still, when he and his partner, Jeffrey Stein, were offered the chance to revive a long-forgotten Walter Travis layout on the dunes of coastal Georgia, he didn’t hesitate.
“That was one of the main motivations for taking this job,” Ross said during the recent grand re-opening of the Great Dunes Golf Club, which carries the same name it did when it debuted in 1928; the design was the last by Travis, a three-time U.S. Amateur champion, completed just after his death.
“Travis didn’t do many courses, and he certainly didn’t do many courses for the public,” Ross said. “He worked mostly for wealthy private clubs — Garden City Golf Club being the most famous — so bringing back one of his few public designs felt like both an honor and a heavy responsibility. We think we did him proud.”
The original Great Dunes stretched through rugged seaside terrain, with sweeping views of the Atlantic. But like many courses of its era, it didn’t endure. Storms in 1942 and 1954, combined with constant beach erosion, reduced it to nine holes. After decades of further wear, even that remnant was eventually folded into another local layout and later acquired by the state of Georgia.
The restoration — a six-million-plus-dollar job that began in 2024 — leaned heavily on archival photographs to recapture the original Travis look: the bold dunes and scruffy sandscapes, the rolling contours and ocean vistas. The team also resurfaced the course in paspalum grass from tee to green, a choice well suited to the island climate.
“From ground level today, the land can seem flatter than it was,” Stein said. “But the old photographs, shot from the dunes and bridges, revealed the undulations and green shapes Travis originally laid out.”
The result isn’t a Lido-like recreation of the 1928 design, replicated to within fractions of an inch. But Ross and Stein say it bears an unmistakable Travis imprint, at a scale most public golfers have never experienced. “It was a big challenge and a big responsibility,” Ross said. “It was also a lot of fun.”
To help guide the work, the duo consulted the Walter Travis Society along with local historians on Jekyll Island, which is owned by the state of Georgia. In their research, Ross found that Travis — an Australian who also won the British Amateur — designed only three public courses: Great Dunes, Potomac Park East in Washington, D.C., and a layout in Buffalo, N.Y.
The island’s historic hotel, with its signature rounded turrets, opened in the early 1900s and once catered to some of the wealthiest travelers in the country. The Travis course followed shortly after, bearing such defining features as towering dunes, sandy blowouts and long glances at the ocean.
The new Great Dunes preserves the layout’s throwback spirit, with modern-day improvements. It is the first course in Georgia, for instance, to irrigate with a brackish-water system designed to reduce freshwater use, curb chemicals and minimize environmental impact. A new wildlife corridor, built along a former rail line near the course, has also brought new species to the property.
Now open to the public, the layout plays 7,014 yards from the back tees and 4,818 from the forward markers, a par-72 that roughly mirrors what Travis envisioned for the oceanside playground a century ago.
“We want to host college tournaments, community events, public play and local island memberships,” said Mark Williams, the Jekyll Island Authority’s executive director. “We feel like we’ve gone back to the future with this layout.”
The End of Governor M.E. Thompson’s Two-Year Term Brings Major Changes
M.E. Thompson’s tenure as Georgia’s acting governor ended with the 1948 special election where his biggest critic, political rival and now the duly-elected Governor Herman Talmadge quickly acted to address what he originally coined as the ‘white elephant‘ unloaded on Georgia by a handful of wealthy Northerners called Jekyll Island.
1949 – 1953: The JIA is Created and Jekyll is Removed from the State Park System
While the Park Is Well-Received, It Quickly Becomes A Financial Burden
As part of Georgia’s State Parks system in 1948-49, the millions of dollars it had cost the State to restore and re-open the Jekyll Island Club as a public resort, along with its ongoing maintenance and operational costs were so great that it was consuming the entire State Parks system budget.
It was determined the best way to deal with Jekyll Island was to remove it from the State Park system and use a state-sponsored authority. Under oversight by the state-sponsored authority, the island would be operated as a state-owned, contractor-leased and operated enterprise headed-up by experienced private developers and operators instead of as a department of Georgia’s State government.
The first lessee of the Island was the accomplished hotel owner and operator Barney Whitaker, Sr. with the assistance of his family, from May 1949 through January 1951. The JIA made a commitment to Whitaker and others to have the causeway and a new dock installed by the summer of 1950, that would have significantly increased the number of visitors and gross receipts Whitaker could be expected to generate, of which 20% would be paid to the state. However, neither were finished by the summer of 1950, with the causeway not being completed until November 1950, but without the promised dock. By the time Whitaker’s lease agreement expired in January 1951, he’d lost between $25,000 and $30,000 $339,336 and $407,203 in 2025 $’s while holding up his terms of the lease and keeping the island open and operating smoothly.
Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act
The island formally became Jekyll Island State Park on on 13 February 1950 when Georgia’s General Assembly passed and enacted the Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act, which created and empowered the Jekyll Island State Park Authority, aka, the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA). The legislation called for for “the operation of the public facilities of the park at rates so moderate that all of the ordinary citizens of the State may enjoy them.”
The JIA was to have a five-member authority serving both as stewards of the land but also running the island like a business, negotiating private leases and managing a budget. The JIA was to be overseen by a governing board of nine directors appointed by Georgia’s Governor, and function as financially self-sustaining agency which was seen by some as achievable given its resources and various attractions and amenities.
The JIA was vested with the, “rights and powers necessary to hold as a lessee, to improve, maintain, beautify, repair, rebuild, increase, extend, subdivide, and sublease no more than one-third of Jekyll Island State Park.”
The 1950 act by limiting development to no more than one third of elevated land was to prevent over development with forward-thinking building codes adhered to its historic character and included a provision to prevent speculative landlords by limiting private individuals from leasing more than three parcels of residential property in any of the five planned sub developments on the north end of the island.
The original legislation granted the JIA a lease of 50 years, during which it was authorized “…to do any other things necessary or proper to beautify, improve, and render self supporting said island park, to make its facilities available to people of average income, and to advertise its beauties to the world.”
The Lack of a Land Bridge Remains the Island’s Achilles Heel
The most significant barrier to making the island viable as a tourist destination and source of revenue to cover the the cost to operate was the same one the Jekyll Island Club’s owners had recognized and could not afford to address: the island was still only accessible via water, to include any and all provisions, construction materials, contractors, State employees and other workers as well as any potential visitors and guests.
The latter precluded many of the ‘plain people of Georgia’ from being able to visit and enjoy even the beaches of the island and slowed the development of the critical infrastructure needed to operate the beach resort, include utilities, restrooms, and commercially owned places to obtain food and beverages and lodging. And that, in turn, severely limited the revenue that could be generated by tourism until a significant amount of capital investment had been made installing a stop-gap dock at the end of the causeway to shorten the ferry ride to the Jekyll Island wharf and pier from an hour to mere minutes, never mind having a firm date for when a permanent lift-bridge to connect the island to the mainland would be built and opened.
Just a Coincidence, But…. Further Unexpected Problems for the JIA
The first Georgia State Constable assigned to Jekyll Island State Park shortly after the State began to occupy the island was briefly housed with his wife in the Brown Cottage, before moving to the Crane Cottage, shared with other State employees.
However, in early February 1950, he and his wife began the process of moving into what was the partially-furnished ‘Clark Cottage’ built in 1901 for the Club’s long-time Captain James Clark and his wife Minnie Schuppan, the Club’s head housekeeper. The Clark Cottage was located next to and on the north side of the DuBignon home, behind the Jekyll Island Hotels’ Annex. It was after moving a significant portion of their belongings to the cottage, when purportedly an electrical system-caused fire destroyed the cottage and everything in it on 9 February 1950.
In either a stroke of incredibly bad luck or an unusual coincidence, the former wood framed and sided Gould Amusement House — also known as the Casino — built in 1902 for his two sons housing a pair of bowling lanes, indoor shooting range, game room and upstairs guest quarters had been leased to the Georgia State Constable’s wife who operated it as a recreation hall. Adjacent to the Casino was a very large, masonry, indoor tennis court 34 built in 1913 by Edwin Gould, as well as a greenhouse that was purportedly added in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s prior to Edwin Gould’s death in 1933 at 67-years-of-age.
Note 34 For unknown reasons, the Gould’s indoor tennis court to this day continues to be referred to as ‘the Casino’ even though it was built adjacent to the Amusement House, aka., ‘the Casino’ in 1913.
Sadly, a fire of undetermined origin broke-out in the Amusement House the night of 18 June 1950 following an outdoor movie night and burned it to the ground. The indoor tennis court that abutted the amusement house suffered only minor damage and is all that remained 35.
Note 35: The Gould indoor tennis courts would continue to be used until the building was repurposed by the JIA as the first Jekyll Island Auditorium / Conference & Convention Center in 1957, supplemented by the new Jekyll Island Aquarama and Conference Center built in the early 1960’s. It remained in use as as an auditorium as late as 2 June 1970, when it was used to host a concert by the Allman Brothers Band on 2 Jun 1970 for the Glynn Academy senior class out of Brunswick, Georgia — one of the oldest public high schools in the nation– as described in Volume 5 Number 1 of 31•81, the Magazine of Jekyll Island. Following the construction of the first Jekyll Island Conference Center in early 1960’s, the greenhouse was removed in the early 1970s, and the former indoor tennis court in more recent years has been apparently used for storage by the JIA.
However, it’s noteworthy that pera late 2025 posting by the Jekyll Island Foundation, “With support from the Jekyll Island Foundation and the Friends of Historic Jekyll Island, the Historic Resources Department is undertaking an important preservation project at the Gould Casino. The work will focus on repairing and safeguarding the building’s exterior, ensuring its historic character is brought back to its hay day. The casino’s façade, constructed of lime stucco over brick, will be carefully repaired using compatible stucco patching. Restoration efforts will also include the original 24 clerestory windows, along with preservation work around the building’s Flemish bond foundation.“
Although both incidents were investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at the request of the JIA, they were ruled accidental. However, in late August 1950 the State Constable was reassigned to a post in Americus, Georgia.
The Causeway is Dedicated and another Bridge Delay
Perhaps the most promising news in 1950 was the dedication of the Jekyll Island Causeway on 4 November. Built at a cost of $2,000,000 $26,885,975in 2025 $’s in State and matching Federal funds over 30 months. As noted earlier, the Jekyll Island Causeway was renamed the Downing E. Musgrove Causeway in 1996. It was just a part of a larger State and Federal project to bring Route 17 back east through Brunswick and across a future bridge to be installed over the Turtle River to reduce the drive ‘through’ Brunswick from the current 50-mile S-shaped route to the west, to an 11-mile direct route.
The re-route of Route 17 would also cause it pass by the future entrance to Jekyll Island State Park and the causeway that will bring motorists to the island. However, as of 4 November, the causeway across Latham Hammock only brought motorists to the edge of Jekyll Creek, 1,100-feet short of Jekyll Island awaiting funding and installation of a vertical-lift bridge to connect the causeway to Jekyll Island and re-open to the public.. which doesn’t happen until 11 December 1954.
It was also in the fall of 1950 when the JIA issued a contract for Georgia Power to bring power to the island via the causeway, providing above ground power lines and poles as well as submerged lines at Jekyll Creek for $76,000 $1,021,667 in $2025 $’s plus $3/pole $40.33 in 2025 $’s. However, not having a budget the JIA is permitted to draw from the governor’s taxpayer-based discretionary funds to cover these types of expenses as well as $30,000 $403,289 in 2025 $’s for JIA Board expenses in FY50 and $89,580 $1,204,222 in 2025 $’s in FY51. Once again, the color of money in regard to the JIA Act’s requirement that operation of Jekyll Island State Park be self-sufficient is not always quite clear.
Unfortunately, a political tug-of-war between Glynn County, the State Highway Department, the U.S. Public Roads Authority and the JIA on how the construction as well as the ownership and operation of the bridge is to be financed delays construction for a full year before the Georgia House Bill 416 that resolved the issue was approved.
The 1951 Robert & Company Master Plan & Revision of the 35% Limit on Development
It was after the JIA Act was issued in 1950 that, on J.D. Compton’s recommendation — one of the first nine members of the JIA’s Board of Directors appointed by Governor Talmadge who continued to oversee day-to-day operations at Jekyll while still President of the Sea Island Company — the JIA commissioned a master plan be produced for the island by Robert & Company to set forth how infrastructure like roads, commercial and residential development would be executed on the Jekyll Island State Park, to ensure compliance with the JIA Act and provisions for limiting development to only 35% of the land above the mean water level at high tide.
Curiously, following the 1951 release of the Robert & Company Master Plan, in 1953 the Georgia Legislature amended the JIA Act to increase the amount of land that could be developed from 35% to 50%, which immediately gave rise to future concerns regarding over-development of Jekyll Island.
It took until 1971 for the language in the JIA Act to be restored to the original 35% threshold for development, and was subsequently changed from the 35/65 rule to a maximum threshold for land development on Jekyll Island to a more easily determined fixed number of no greater than 1,675 acres in 2014.
More Bridge Delays Compel the State to Suspend Public Access to Jekyll Island
As for the Jekyll Island Creek lift-bridge project, it ultimately turns out to be a far greater challenge than originally planned. While some progress had been made by the JIA on the island, such as razing the less significant smaller Club structures, the ‘hoped for’ opening of a bridge by May 1949 came and went without any significant progress.
It wasn’t until 7 March 1951 when the JIA and Georgia State Highway Board entered into a contract for the construction of what eventually became the Jekyll Creek vertical-lift bridge, connecting State Highway 50 between the eastern shore of Latham Hammock Island and Jekyll Island. Based on crossing the political hurdle with Georgia House Bill 416, the JIA was to operate it as a toll bridge, using the net-proceeds of tolls collected to cover the cost of bridge operations.
Moving forward, by the summer of 1951 the JIA has received bids from three builders for installation of the bridge. However, with the escalation of the Korean Conflict, the National Production Authority (NPA) established in 1950 under the control of the Office of Defense Mobilization’s Defense Production Administration, by then the requests for the steel needed to built the bridge in amounts greater than 25-tons required the approval of the NPA. Given there was no military need for the Jekyll Island Creek bridge project, neither the builders or the State of Georgia could obtain the steel and the bridge project was delayed for another year.
It was at that point the JIA decided it would not be economically feasible to continue operating Jekyll Island State Park until such time as the bridge was completed and opened. Therefore, on 10 September 1951 the Jekyll Island State Park was essentially closed to the public. It would not reopen until the bridge was completed, a date that was still to be determined at the time the park was closed.
To bridge the gap in transportation from the ferry services that were dependent upon revenue from travel to and from the island, as well as transporting workers and supplies and provisions to support the island’s operation — to include provisions for the prisoner labor force that was brought to the island in 1951 — the JIA earlier in the year anticipating the closing of the island acquired it’s own yacht named the Sea Wolf 37 from a local captain, R.J. Reddick for $3,000 $40,328 in 2025 $’s. The JIA hired Reddick to captain the yacht as well as work as a guard for $200 $2,688in 2025 $’s per month, as well as providing him with lodging in one of the Pier Road houses.
Note 37: I’ve been unable to find any additional information regarding the Sea Wolf’s vessel type or size, nor anymore information regarding Reddick, never mind any photos.
In 1951 the JIA Establishes a Convict Camp at the Former Club Dairy
While the park was closed to the public, work on the island continued looking ahead to reopening within the next few years.
As was not uncommon in Georgia, in 1951 inmates from prisons to perform manual labor on State projects were brought to Jekyll Islands State Park under the lease-convict system. and the JIA established a convict camp on the island. Unlike the first somewhat inefficient, all-white convict crew brought-in in 1948, an all colored crew of prisoners were brought to the island to perform the manual labor needed to complete the island’s infrastructure, to include clearing overgrown vegetation, getting the uncontrolled growth in wildlife resolved, clearing and rebuilding root-covered and blocked roads, clearing and installing drainage ditches, building repairs, neglected maintenance, setting-up and running a sawmill and improving the collection of roads around the island to establish a single perimeter road.
One of their early projects was clearing the first of 500 potential home lots38 arranged in five proposed sub-developments on the north end of the island; the JIA proposed to lease the lots based on their location for $100 to $400 $1,208 to $4,835 in 2025 $’s per year.
Note 38: By the time the island ultimately re-opened in December 1954, only 126 lots had been leased. By April 1955, only two homes were under construction. As of 1961,only a total of 97 homes had been built, but by 1964 that number had increased to 326. Originally exempt from Glynn County property taxes early-on to encourage growth of the developments, in 1963 annual taxes began to be collected at the request of the Glynn County Board of Education.
The convicts were also tasked with dismantling the interior, arson-damaged Pulitzer/Albright Cottage in 1958 and, in an interesting form of recycling for the time, the JIA used the bricks salvaged from the demolished cottage to build some of the bath houses in the Oleander Golf Course as well rebuild the old clubhouse 39 at Great Dunes golf course. Initially, the Club EraTee House on the 10th tee of the Great Dunes course was razed and replaced with a new dual purpose Oceanside golf course clubhouse and beach pavilion and bath house by the JIA in 1948.
Note 39: This was after the original back-nine holes of the Great Dunes golf course had been leveled in 1953 (see below) and the Club Era ‘Tee House’ had been replaced in 1948 with a $60,000 dual use golf clubhouse and beach pavilion with a bath house and snack bar. The 1952 all-brick clubhouse is now used by the Red Bug Pizza Restaurant, adjacent to the Peppermint Land at Jekyll Island Mini Golf.
Initially it was just a crew of 23 colored inmates who were housed in the former Club dairy barn, while their guards took up residence in the dairy’s former employee housing. The warden — reporting to Island Superintendent Hoke Smith — shared living space with other State personnel in one of the cottages in the Historic District. By 1953, the number of colored inmates working on the island grew to 100 before the convict camp was closed in late December 1955.
The JIA Designates the Horton House Ruins a Historical Park Site in 1951
As the recently installed JIA begins to focus on development after securing funding from the governor’s office and with the Roberts & Company firm on contract to develop a master plan for the island, the JIA’s vice chair, Mike Benton proposes that all of the existing, original roads from the Club Era be restored and retain their club-member given names. He also makes a motion that the ‘Horton House and DuBignon Cemetery‘ be set-aside as historic places on the island that also cannot be developed. Both motions are adopted and incorporated into the Roberts & Company Master Plan.
For those who may want a refresher on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion & DuBignon Memorial Cemetery previously addressed in Segments 1 and 2 of my Jekyll Island history compilation, in 1898, members of the Jekyll Island Club lead by Charles and Charlotte Maurice took it upon themselves to organize a a volunteer group to stabilize and partially restore the abandoned, remaining tabby shell of the so-called Horton House.
The Horton House had been built by Major William Horton who first arrived in the North American British Colonies at Savannah, Georgia, during February 1736. After establishing the town and fort at Frederica on St. Simons Island on behalf of Georgia’s founder and first Trustee of colonial Georgia James Oglethorpe, Horton attained the rank of major and was placed in command of the militia garrisoned in the area. While establishing Fort Frederica, given his rank and role, Horton was granted 500 acres of land on the neighboring, recently re-named Jekyl island by the Trustees of the colony.
After the land passed through several other hands, it was subsequently the home of Christophe Poulain DuBignon. DuBignon’s son, Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon, was the next member of the family to reside in the Horton House and rename it the DuBignon Mansion from which the attended to the plantation using enslaved labor from 1825 until likely leaving the island in 1852, which would coincide with the year on one of three gravestones found on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansiongrounds. The house and grounds were found in near ruin in 1862 when the island was occupied by Union Troops during the Civil War.
The Jekyll Island Club’s Members Preserve the Horton House in 1898
It was in May of 1898 when a group of Jekyll Island Club members were organized into a historic preservation team by Charles and Margaret Maurice who used concrete, iron bracing rods on the chimney and added-back brick-concrete wall sections with a concrete veneer to restore the structure to the physical form it maintains to this day.
While the Jekyll Island Club’s volunteer and amateur preservationists were working on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion, they found three gravestones —also known as full grave ledgers — for three people associated with the DuBignon family: Joseph DuBignon, Ann Amelia DuBignon, and Marie Felicite Riffault. The gravestones had originally been used to cover their respective graves located elsewhere on the grounds of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion lost to time. Over the years, the gravestones had been disturbed, damaged and separated from from the burial plots.
The Jekyll Island Club preservationists built a new, small memorial cemetery within sight distance of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion out of a low, stucco covered brick wall with a concrete veneer finish –– the same techniques they used as they restored the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion— wherein they placed the three gravestones.
The White marble gravestones were signed at the bottom with “Wm. T White, marble cutter Ch. So. Ca.”.
To help and preserve the gravestones, in addition to the walled and gated cemetery enclosure, they were placed on above ground, exposed brick ‘tombs‘ in a respectful manner and in the center of the memorial cemetery.
In 1912, two additional headstones were added to the cemetery, possibly more-or-less memorial markers for two Club employees who accidentally drowned in the Jekyll Creek on 12 March 1912.
Note that in recent past, the gravestones and headstones were restored and cleaned to a high degree.
The People for Whom the Three Gravestones Were Produced
Joseph DuBignon, (b.1814, d.1850): The first to have been buried of the three was Joseph DuBignon, the son of Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon and grandson Christophe Poulain DuBignon who died of unknown causes on 27 April 1950
Ann Amelia duBignon, nee Nicolau, (b.1787, d.1850): The second to have been buried of the three was Ann Amelia duBignon, the first wife of Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon and Joseph DuBignon’s mother, who died on Saturday, 4 May 1850, exactly one week after her son Joseph’s death on Saturday, 27 April 1850.
Marie Anne Felicite Riffault, nee Grand Du Treuilh , (b.1776, d.1852): The third to have been buried of the three was Marie Anne Felicite Ruffault, the mother of Joseph DuBignon’s wife, Felicite Elizabeth Riffault and his mother-in-law. She died on 5 April 1852 at 76-years-of-age, just a few months before Henri Dubignon and his new wife Mary Delora DuBignon moved off the island and abandoned the Horton House / DuBignon mansion and just ahead of the Civil War when both Confederate and then Union Troops occupied the island.
The other two headstones that were placed in the DuBignon Cemetery were added well after the Jekyll Island Club members had built the memorial cemetery and moved the three gravestone markers into it.
George F. Harvey & Hector DeLiynassis, 21 March 1912:
Back on 21 March 1912, one of the Jekyll Island Club’s waiters, George Harvey a young immigrant worker from England, apparently went swimming in the Jekyll Creek and came under duress and was drowning.
Another young waiter and purportedly per June McCash’s novel “Almost to Eden” was the personal waiter for the J.P. Morgan, Sr. family, 23-year-old Hector “The Greek” DeLiyannis and immigrant worker from Smyrna, Greece — misspelled Syrmna on the memorial — attempted to rescue him and also drowned.
While it is believed both of the young men were buried somewhere on the island, the headstones appear to be just like the three gravestones that were moved there: they were memorials placed there by the Jekyll Island Club’s members to honor their dear departed friends and staff members from the Club.
However, there are no remains under the three gravestones in the DuBignon Memorial Cemetery nor under the two headstones added in 1912. The DuBignon Memorial Cemetery is therefore, in effect, a memorial cemetery with merely the gravestones that honor the people represented by the markers.
The latter was purportedly confirmed in the 1970s during other historical research on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion site when the cemetery was scanned with earth-penetrating sonar.
There Are LIkely Many Unmarked Graves on Jekyll Island
The patriarch of the family at Jekyl, Christophe Poulain DuBignon, died at the Island on 15 September 1825 and was buried in an unmarked grave close to an old oak tree by the DuBignon Creek. His wife, Marguerite, died 29 December 1825 and was buried close to her husband. Their graves are probably located in the vicinity of the present day DuBignon Memorial Cemetery, but have never been definitively found.
Just for context, unmarked graves were quite common in the 1700’s and 1800’s, particularly in times of war, or during outbreaks of malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever and the like when bodies would be buried with little or no markings, and perhaps a description of where a family member was buried in the family bible, i.e., next to a tree or some other object that seemed permanent at the time, but also was lost to time.
Again, it’s thought Christophe Poulain DuBignon’s and his wife Marguerite’s graves are close to the present day DuBignon Memorial Cemetery, but time has erased all traces just as it has with most of the many, many other souls whose bodies were likely buried on the island and without regard to their station in life, be they the master or a servant.
Sidebar 8:1971 – The Horton House is Added to the National Register of Historic Places
In 1971, the Horton House was accepted and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as being among the oldest tabby buildings in the state. The application makes for interesting reading, albeit in some cases straying from history and incorrectly citing history. But, then again, it was prepared by the Jekyll Island Authority home office in Atlanta, Georgia, who likely relied upon other accounts collected over time and perhaps over-generalized and embellished. But, with regard to the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion and Memorial Cemetery, it makes for an interesting summary to the application:
Georgia Historical Commission as the Staff Historian between 1964 and 1973, He then returned to Georgia as the Director of the Georgia Historic Sites Survey, under the aegis of the Director of the Georgia Historical Commission, where he established and managed the National Register of Historic Places program in Georgia.
“From 1791 to 1886 Jekyll Island was owned by the duBignon family, fugitives from the French Revolution. The original owner, Le Sieur Christophe Poulain de la Houssaye duBignon, repaired the tabby Horton house adding wooden wings and made it his home. The old fields were turned to the cultivation of indigo and Sea Island cotton. Upon his death in 1814 duBignon was buried at a now unknown spot near duBignon Creek.
Generations of his family were buried in the duBignon cemetery overlooking the creek and across from the Horton-duBignon House. During the Civil War, the tabby house and several later duBignon houses were destroyed, as was the plantation economy.
Members of the Jekyll Island Club who purchased the island in 1888 grew interested in the island’s history and reinforced the ruins of the old tabby house. They also built a wall around the cemetery where they buried two sailors [sic] drowned at sea on March 21, 1912.
In 1947 the State purchased the entire island and placed its administration under the Jekyll Island State Park Authority, guaranteeing its conservation and preservation.
The shell of the Horton-duBignon House, the ruins of the old brewery and the small duBignon cemetery stand in marked contrast to the fabulous Jekyll Island Club complex only a short distance away. Yet the contrast marks well the different phases of Jekyll’s history – from the simple 18th century military outpost, to the 19th century cotton plantation, to the 20th century millionaire’s village-altogether having national significance.”
The JIA Removes Jekyll’s Iconic Dunes Beginning in 1952
While the State Park was closed, and as part of what in retrospect appears to be a short-sighted JIA cost-cutting decision 40, the early 1950’s two-miles of the beach dunes — some as high as 40′ — were excavated and leveled using earth moving equipment that had been brought to the island, as were the back-nine holes of the island’s 1927 Great Dunes golf course. The same fate befell the 1898 Riverside course, one of the oldest golf courses in the United States, with the soil used to build the roadbed for what is now Riverview Drive.
Looking North From The Current Location of the Beach Village & Conference Center
Note 40: I’d be curious to know if this recommended change was something included in the April 1952 Roberts & Company Master Plan produced for and approved by the JIA, given the concrete boardwalk installed in 1957 (see below) was part of the plan.
Again, a total of two-miles of dunes were removed between the current Beachview Hotel –– originally the Jekyll Estates Motel — and Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Jekyll Island, originally the Corsair Motel — effectively leveling the shoreline so motorists driving on the recently completed Perimeter Road could see the beach and ocean as they drove by, purportedly thought by the JIA to be an aesthetic improvement that would attract more visitors once they could drive onto the island.
The following series of images are from the back-nine of the 1927 Great Dunes golf course along the island’s eastern shoreline and dunes before they were excavated and leveled.
The soil and sand removed from the dunes and back-nine of the Great Dunes golf course were used to help bolster the Jekyll Creek earthen embankment, and repair or build-up roads leading from the causeway to places on the island or along other island roads. At that time, the JIA and its contractors purportedly didn’t understand the importance of the natural dunes 41 to the island’s eco system built-up over 1,000’s of years.
Note 41: In more recent years as extensive work has been done to revitalize Jekyll Island’s eastern shoreline and along with creating the Great Dunes Park, Beach Village and and other beachfront amenities, the JIA has been working to restore the dunes and made great strides in regaining the eco-system balance the dunes provide to the shoreline, as both have been eroding at sometimes alarming rates.
The Georgia General Assembly Amends the Jekyll Island State Park Authority Act
As noted above, in 1953, the Georgia General Assembly amended the JIA Act by providing that the JIA could only improve and lease no more than one-half (50%) of the land area which lies above high tide 42.
It also changed the lease term to 99 years, beginning on 13 February 1950 (exp. 13 Feb 2049). The lease term would automatically be extended an additional 40 years (exp. 13 Feb 2089) upon the ending of the initial 99-year term to manage the island on behalf of the State for and in consideration of $1.00 annually for each calendar year or fraction thereof paid in hand to and receipted for by the Office of the State Treasurer.
The duration of the JIA being extended to 99-years, i.e., in perpetuity, was to ensure the FHA could be able to underwrite a sublease for 99-years which, up and until this amendment was written, the JIA was not even able to issue.
And, once again, the JIA was to receive no public operating funds and its operating budget was to be established based on the value of leases, fees, and revenue generated by the Jekyll Island State Park, i.e., it had to be self-sustaining.
Note 42: The general stipulation of the act that no more than 35 percent of the land area of Jekyll Island which lies above water at mean high tide shall remain undeveloped has continued to be the subject of conjecture, challenges, interpretation and amended language in the Act, but as of 2024 the 35/65 rule remains in effect for Jekyll Island.
1954 – 1961: A Construction Boom Begins after the State Park Reopens
Some Thoughts on the early years of the State Era
Bearing in mind that from 1904 until 1966, Georgia’s Democratic Party candidates for governor ran unopposed — notwithstanding any write-in candidates — Georgia’s election of a new governor would essentially be won or lost during the Democratic primary election held several months ahead of the November general elections.
In the 1954 gubernatorial race, candidate Marvin Griffin’s rival was M.E. Thompson, who had also run and lost against Herman Talmage for a second time in 1948. Both Talmage and Griffin used Jekyll Island’s acquisition by Thompson during his brief, 2-year term as governor, as a central part of their campaign invoking ‘Thompson’s Folly’ as well as the “white elephant” labels and called for the island’s sale, if it might be possible.
To say Jekyll Island State Park faced headwinds through its early years would be an understatement, while at the same time being an immense financial drain on the taxpayer-funded State budget, where the costs to make the island viable were so widely distributed across different Federal, State and Local agencies — never mind pulling from special reserve accounts — that the different colors of funds used, never-mind the total cost seems to be hard to establish, never-mind how much was sometimes paid for the projects.
Therefore, even by 1954, to suggest the Jekyll Island Club’s decision to allow Georgia to condemn and buy the island through the eminent domain for a $675,000 wasn’t tantamount to unloading a ‘white elephant’ would be hard-pressed to defend the allegation.
In fact, it would not be for several decades before the JIA actually became self-sufficient, so long as you exclude all of the sunk-cost that enabled it to survive as a State Park, as well as additive costs of future ‘follies’ by the JIA.
This doesn’t even even begin to factor-in the costs of eco-system impacts and man-caused damage to the island and costs to attempt to mitigate that damage so-far expended. And, then there is the additional environmental damage mitigation still yet to come, as it has already been determined some of the earlier mitigation projects were either done incorrectly or were ineffective, as both the beach and shoreline continue to erode at an accelerated pace — historically-speaking — due to man-caused conditions and issues on and around the Barrier Islands.
The Causeway and Bridge Open, as Jekyll Begins to Thrive
The bridge is tentatively scheduled to be completed by June 1954; however, vertical lift installation oversights and technical issues push-back the planned opening ceremonies twice before the next ‘scheduled‘ completion on 30 September 1954, which is then postponed again until October. It was at that point when it was decided to operate the bridge with only light vehicle traffic during daylight hours as a precaution while the mechanical lift systems were “broken-in.” Therefore, the opening date is eventually pushed back to 11 December 1954.
The latter provides the lift-bridge contractor, the Industrial Construction Company, to address two oversights in the bridge’s installation: enclosing the control house and running a phone line from the control house to the bridge tender’s home on the island, adding another $2,650 $32,034 in 2025 $’s. It also gave the JIA much-needed time to finish preparing the island side of the access roads from the bridge and roads elsewhere on the island. Once again, soil and sand from two more dunes is excavated and moved to support the road work.
While there were still calls for the State to divest itself of the island, with the causeway and bridge project nearing completion — and given how much of Georgia’s and other Federal agency resources have been expended to bring the island to this point in its transformation — a majority of Georgia’s State Lawmakers continue to support Jekyll Island State Park and on 11 December 1954, it was finally re-opened to the public.
There was apparently a massive number of invited dignitaries and guests, as well as thousands of visitors anxious to drive onto the island for the first time. M.E. Thompson’s most vocal critics Talmage and Griffin were present to cut the ribbon, with speeches by Governor Talmage, governor-elect Griffin, J.D. Compton provided the history and plans going-forward, and another member of the JIA provided details regarding the application and lease process, noting a large sign was placed at the entrance to the Jekyll Island Causeway advertising 3-year lease rentals at $100/month.
Thousands of visitors came to the island over the first few days, taking a drive around the new perimeter road comprised of Beachview Drive on the east, and Riverview Drive on the west.
A simple but large monument to the 1950 Jekyll Island Authority was also unveiled at the bridge opening that was apparently located at the entrance to the island. I’m still trying to identify where it may be, or when it may have been removed.
Per a purported Georgia State audit conducted after the Jekyll Island Creek lift-bridge 43 was completed, the cost to build just the bridge was $917,840 $11,095,452 in 2025 $’s, $243,000 $2,937,543 in 2025 $’s more than the $675,000 $8,159,843 in 2025 $’s Georgia paid to acquire the island in 1947. Therefore, when combined with the cost of the causeway, opening up Jekyll island to the mainland cost magnitudes more than the Sea Island Company had estimated it would as a privately-owned enterprise back in 1944.
Note 43: By 1961, the six-year-old bridge had to undergo major repairs and extensive maintenance as no one involved in developing the requirements for the bridge considered how the fleet of ten shrimping boats that called the Jekyll Island Marina their home base would require 10,000 cycles of the lift-bridge a year to allow the boats to enter and exit through the south end of Jekyll Creek.
By late 1986, preliminary plans for a replacement bridge were developed; however, were not a high-priority for the Georgia Department of Transportation and were pushed to a early 1990’s project. The contract for the new 2,430-foot long, 65-foot high girder bridge was awarded to Tidewater Construction Co. in August 1994, and construction took place in 1995 through 1997 and was completed in August 1997 at a cost of $10,107,000, 80% of which was funded by the Federal government and 20% by Georgia.
The Forerunner of today’s Jekyll Island Museum, MOSAIC is Also Opened
11 December 1954 was also a milestone for several other reasons, and at the top of the list was the opening of the Jekyll Island Museum at the Indian Mound Cottage by Tulla Fish.
Tulla grew-up 60-miles away in Waycross, Georgia, and would would occasionally travel to Brunswick where she and her mother would look across the Turtle River at Jekyll Island“where the millionaires vacationed” according to her granddaughter, Sarah Tallu Schuyler.
After moving to Kentucky and a career in journalism where she was the one-time editor of the Democratic Women’s Club Journal of Kentucky and a columnist for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, she returned to Georgia following the death of her husband.
In November 2054, Tulla approached the JIA seeking to obtain establish a concession to operate a proposed Jekyll Island Museum at the Rockefeller’s“Indian Mound Cottage”. the concession would generate its revenue by charging visitors $0.50 and the sale of momentos, such as Sand Dollars. Once agreed-to by the JIA, she then had the task of having her museum ready to greet guests when the State park re-opened in 20-days on 11 December.
As the first concession-based curator of the museum and its sole employee, she moved into Indian Mound’s servants quarters for the next eight years 44 and quickly began to gather and organize artifacts from the Jekyll Island Club Era to place on exhibit in the former Rockefeller winter vacation cottage. It was in 1959 when she published Once Upon an Island, the story of Fabulous Jekyllsold for $1.00 at the museum, an excellent 20-page synopsis of the island’s early history and the Club Era.
Note 44: In 1957, the JIA approached Tulla Fish and requested she voluntarily rescind her lease for the Jekyll Island Museum at Indian Mound and, instead, become a State employee on salary still operating the museum, but on behalf of the state. They made the same request of the golf course lease holder, Lewis Bean. However, they subsequently changed their mind and allowed both continue to operate under their existing lease agreements.
Tulla Fish would go on to move into her own home on the island in 1962, just beyond the Jekyll Island Estates hotel — the first hotel opened on the island in 1958 — at Bliss Lane on the ocean side of Beachview Drive. Tulla wrote several books and articles about Jekyll Island during her lifetime and remained the museum’s curator and central figure until her retirement in 1969, passing shortly after in 1971.
Ken & Tania DeBillis oversaw the Jekyll Island Museum from 1969 until 1979. The daughter of former Club members John & Susan Albright — the second and last owners of the original Pulitzer Cottage before transferring the title to the Club — Nancy Hurd took on the role as the Jekyll Island Museum curator on a part-time basis until 1983.
The JIA Designates St. Andrews for Use by People of Color
While Governor M.E. Thompson was quoted saying at the time the island was, “a playground that now belongs to every Georgian”, segregation and Jim Crow laws were still being enforced in Georgia and elsewhere. Therefore, when the State Park opened in March 1948, while there were colored staff members and workers on the island, visitor access to the island and use of the amenities were only available to whites.
In 1950 several people of color residents of Brunswick, Georgia, petitioned the State for separate but equal accommodations on Jekyll Island for people of color. However, work on those projects failed to begin before the Island was temporarily closed to the public between 10 September 1951 until 11 December 1954 when the Jekyll Island Creek lift-bridge was finally opened to the public.
The JIA eventually established a segregated portion of southeast Jekyll Island known as St. Andrews, 2.7-miles away from the other beaches, hotels and State Park’s Jekyll Island Club Era amenities when the rather basic and simple colored beach house was built at a cost of $8,658 $104,663 in 2025 s had been completed — as compared to the $60,000 $806,579 in 2025 $’s for the 1948 “white” dual purpose clubhouse and beach pavilion at the end of Shell Road.
It was on 25 September 1955 when the first public beach in Georgia accessible to ‘people of color’ with its own colored beach house opened to great fanfare with Jimmy Dykes paying the park’s $0.50 $6.04 in 2025 $’s per person entry fee for all of the colored guests who came to the grand opening. This was five years after the JIA had agreed to establish the separate but equal accommodations on Jekyll Island. 45
Note 45: This accommodation was granted 14 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into U.S. law by Congress on 2 July 1964, outlawing segregation in public and private facilities in the United States.
The first and only colored motor inn — the Dolphin Inn — and the Dolphin Inn Restaurant and Nightclub would not open until July 1959, three years after the land on which they were built was the first leased for a motel by the JIA and a year after the first motels on the island — the Jekyll Estates and the Wanderer models — opened in the summer of 1958.
It was in 1960 when Dr. James Clinton Wilkes, president of the Black Dental Association of Georgia, leveraged the“1896 separate but equal” U.S. legal principle to argue for the construction of a convention space at St. Andrews Beach so he could host his organization’s annual conference on Jekyll Island. The JIA quickly constructed the St. Andrews Auditorium, and Dr. Wilkes held his convention there later the same year. The first home would not be built in the St. Andrews subdivision until 1963, eight years after the first homes were built on the island.
The Progressive Side of Georgia & St. Andrews Beach…such as it was, and later the 4H Camp & Camp Jekyll
While Georgia politicians touted Jekyll as a populist retreat, the island operated under the same segregationist policies as the rest of the Jim Crow South. Black visitors were restricted to the St. Andrews Beach at the southern end of the island. When the JIA built its grand glass-window-enclosed Aquarama for whites, the “separate but equal” offering for blacks was a small pool covered by a tin shed. Whites had a boardwalk and use of the old historic hotel, while blacks had to make do with the relatively small “colored beach house,” auditorium, Dolphin Inn and Dolphin Restaurant and Nightclub. Never-mind, it was a 450-yard, or 1/4-mile walk from the beach house to the beach along the main beach access path. For the other hotels and north bathhouse, they were all less than 100-yards from the beach, excluding the 1972 Holiday Inn Resort and now 2010 Hampton Inn & Suites where the boardwalk over the dunes is about a 150-yard walk.
It was in 1963 when the Georgia General Assembly amended the Jekyll Island Authority Act to specify that income arising out of the operation of the Park, “shall be used by the JIAfor the sole purpose of beautifying, improving, developing, enlarging, maintaining, administering, managing and promoting Jekyll Island State Park at the lowest rates reasonable and possible for the benefit of the ordinary people of the State of Georgia.“
That prompted the biracial Council on Human Relations threatened to sue the JIA in March 1963 for its sub-par ‘separate by equal’ accommodations and a few weeks later when twenty-five members of the NAACP attempted to integrate the island’s white-only facilities. Some of the NAACP members ate at a lunch counter and used picnic tables, while others were denied access to Jekyll’s Aquarama, golf course, and three motels. The Georgia State Patrol officers assigned to the island ‘looked the other way’.
It was in the following March –– three months before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on 2 July 1964 –– when the NAACP group filed a discrimination suit against the JIA. Secretary of State Ben Fortson — who as Georgia’s Secretary of State also oversaw the JIA — claimed no formal policy of segregation. “We just play it by ear on a day-to-day basis for what is best for the island,” he told a reporter.
After the Civil Rights Act became part of U.S. Law on 2 July, it became illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and to practice segregation in public places, schools, and employment and an order was issued in mid-1964 by U.S. District Judge Frank Hooper that also required Jekyll Island State Park’s full integration.
Within two years the St. Andrews Beach colored beach house, Dolphin Inn & Dolphin Restaurant & Nightclub, and auditorium were shuttered as all visitors to Jekyll Island were now free to enjoy the rest of facilities on the island. However, it is noteworthy that the St. Andrews Auditorium continued to host large events and in 1964, just before Jekyll Island peacefully desegregated, the St. Andrews Auditorium hosted one of its final and most famous entertainer for its last big-name act: Georgia native Otis Redding.
Today, while the St. Andrews residential community remains as well as the historic pavilion, the former locations of the segregated Dolphin Motor Inn, the Dolphin Inn Restaurant and Nightclub and St. Andrews Auditorium built in 1959-1960 were first re-purposed in June 1966 for periodic use by youth groups, in 1976 when the 4-H Tidelands Nature Center at Camp Jekyll on Jekyll Island was established, and in 1983 leased by Georgia 4-H as the 4-H Center Summer Camp that was expanded in 1987 into a year-round facility supporting environmental education programs and operated as part of the University of Georgia (UGA) Cooperative Extension.
It was on 29 March 2013 when the JIA and Georgia 4-H partnered with UGA and with support from Governor Nathan Deal when $17-million $23-million in 2025 $’s was appropriated in the FY2014 Georgia Budget to renovate, expand and improve Camp Jekyll and in May 2013 the all but the historic St. Andrews pavilion were razed and construction and renovations began.
The new Camp Jekyll featured new cabins, two new pavilions, renovation of historic pavilion, a new dining hall, new staff housing and a new auditorium featuring offices, classrooms, animal labs and an infirmary. It was on 5 December 2016 when the opening ceremony for the new Camp Jekyll managed by Georgia 4-H and UGA Cooperative Extension was held, with operation resuming on 1 February 2017 and the return of Georgia 4-H Environmental Education school field studies. It was also on 1 February 2017 when old St. Andrews was designated as an historic landmark known as Camp Jekyll.
As the JIA began to shift its focus to the development of housing on the island, it warrants taking step back to recall that in August 1952, the approved Roberts & Company Master Plan for Jekyll Island was first made available to the public at the 1952 Southeastern Fair held at the Lakewood Fairgrounds in south Atlanta.
It was the first time the JIA initiated a promotional effort to market individual home lots on the island with leasing opportunities beginning in 1953. The latter would also include a segregated home development with lots being leased adjacent to the St. Andrews Beach on the southeast end of the island, based on a decision made at a 23 August 1952 JIA Committee meeting.
The planning behind the leased home developments was somewhat ill-conceived and created future issues for the JIA and Jekyll Island, a recurring theme. Some of issues they created dealt with title insurance for home construction loans for the leased lots, the decision to forego the installation of sewer systems and use septic tanks, water systems with five developments planned for the north end of the island, and a still to be planned, segregated colored sub-development at St. Andrews Beach.
When the JIA’s Master Plan was developed, it called for leasing 750 lots per year with a goal of achieving a grand total of 2,000 leased lots for both commercial and residential purposes. Initially, residential lots inland and without beach view were assed fair-market lot values that yielded an annual rent fee of $100 per year $1,204 in 2025 $’s, while those with beach views, corner lots and those that could be used for multi-unit dwellings were accessed a $400 per year $4,817 in 2025 $’s lease rent fee.
Their original plan to prepare 750 single family home lots to be leased per year with a total build-out of 2,000 leased homesites proved to be overly ambitious. Although some newspapers report some 1,500 lease applications having been filed with the aforementioned 2,000 lots available, the actual number of combined inquiries and lease applications was only 231 in 1954. That the interest in leasing a home lot on the island remained low should not have come as a surprise, given potential buyers had no way of seeing the lots while the island was still closed to the public awaiting a still unknown bridge completion date, never mind being in a State Park without any existing infrastructure, grocery stores, gas stations or other amenities beyond State Park amenities available to visitors.
By the end of 1954, only 200 applications had been received for the first 500 lots made available for lease, and most of the applicants declined to pay the required fees. From those 200 applications that were received, only 126 lots were actually leased, all in the Oak Grove and Beach developments.
By April, only two homes were under construction, the first completed was on a lot leased by Georgia Tech professor A.D. Holland, and the second was on a lot leased by one of the first Jekyll Island realtors, Norbert Overtolz and his wife Marsha who had previously been renting space in one of the cottages in the Club Compound.
Sidebar 9: A Snapshot of Jekyll’s Population, Residences and Hotel Room Stats
As of 1961, only a total of 97 homes had been built, but by 1964 that number had increased to 326 and as of 1989 there were 733 permanent homes built on the island. Originally exempt from Glynn County property taxes early-on to encourage growth of the developments, in 1963 annual taxes began to be collected at the request of the Glynn County Board of Education.
In terms of the more current numbers, it’s a challenge to pin-down accurate numbers, as they vary quite a bit even within the U.S. Census data. However, in terms of what I was able to find before giving-up on definitive numbers…
Per the 2020 U.S. Censusand other reports based on the 2020 Census, Jekyll Island had a population of between 866 and 1,078 with 659 households. Of the reported 1,434 housing units, between 793 and 932 were single homes with another 501 dwellings in multi-unit structures, of which between 459 and 659 were occupied, 82% by owners and 18% by renters.
Per a 28 August 2023 Georgia Trend magazine articleby Jeffrey Humphreys that looked at Jekyll Island’s Local Impact, ‘permanent residents’ of Jekyll Island occupied 358 ‘homes’, with 328 residential property owners who use their Jekyll residence as a ‘second home’, while 361 of the residential property owners use their Jekyll residence as a rental property noting that in 2023 there were 320 ‘long stay visitors’, aka., snowbirds who spent more than 30 days on Jekyll Island.
The following was pulled from the 24 June 2025 JIA Committees and Meeting Public Data Packet which includes key information including hotel room counts, occupancy rates, average daily rates and how the hotel tax revenue fits into the overall JIA revenue stream. All told, there are presently 1,399 hotel rooms available on Jekyll Island which can accommodate anywhere from one to perhaps as many as five or six guests in a single room with two queen-size beds and a pull-out, full-size sofa-sleeper couch. As highlighted on the Revenue chart, for May the hotel tax collected by the JIA accounted for 9% of their revenue stream based on May’s total hotel revenue of $7,497,494.
Allegations of Cronyism Surface on What Some call “Dykes Island”
Once again, sorry for the length of my “commentary” but since I have already captured this element of the Jekyll Island State Era history for my still in-work compilation, I figure I might was well share it for those who might be interested since I’m still not sure when I’ll finally finishing even the 1947-1970’s Part I segment of the State Era History.
Not to cast less than flattering history on the enjoyable story in 31*81, “Dykes Island” was to many back in the 1950’s a pejorative nickname given an overwhelming number of allegations of cronyism that caused some to refer to Jekyll Island as “Dykes Island“.
As noted earlier in this entry, the JIA and State of Georgia closed Jekyll Island State Park and the island to the public on 10 September 1951, until it was finally re-opened on 11 December 1954 after the causeway and Jekyll Creek lift bridge were installed and provided the essential land-access to the island needed to make it financially viable as a Georgia State Park and destination beach resort and place of historical interest.
“The land-access to the State Park ushered in a robust period of new development on the island, resulting in a new boardwalk, picnic areas, a convention center, and shopping. The recently established perimeter road ushered-in several years when the JIA was criticized and received a significant amount of negative publicity in the mid-1950s as development on the island did not progress smoothly and there were several broken commitments and various allegations of rampant cronyism.
As an example, it was in 1954 when Georgia State Senator from Cochran, Jimmy Dykes finally secured one of the JIA contracts, noting he’d submitted a bid to lease and manage the entire island back in 1949, which was instead awarded to Barney Whitaker. Whitaker successfully executed his contract through January 1951 when the JIA elected to allow it to lapse before closing the island later in the year, noting Whitaker has lost an estimated $25,000 and $30,000 $339,336 and $407,203 in 2025 $’s while holding up his terms of the lease and keeping the island open and operating smoothly.
Dykes’ first JIA contract award came in early January 1954 when the Georgia Highway Department awarded a $207,893 $2,513,147 in 2025 $’s contract for the causeway to Acme Construction Company, owned by Dykes, against the objections of JIA Board Member J.D. Compton who cited Acme at that time did not have the ability to execute the contract. Ahead of the completion of the Jekyll Creek’s bridge opening on 11 December 1954, Dykes’ Acme Construction Company, along with Coffee Construction, another paving company owned by Dykes brother-in-law who shared in a $218,000 $2,635,327 in 2025 $’s contract to pave the recently completed Jekyll Island perimeter road and parkway entrance to the island.
In May 1955, the JIA leased the Jekyll Island Clubhouse / Hotel to a firm from Cochran, Georgia. Given Corcoran was both his home town and inside his 14th District as a State Senator, the JIA sought assurances from Dykes he was not involved with the firm. It was purportedly learned two-months after the lease had been granted that Dykes was, in fact, a principal shareholder in the firm — now named the Jekyll Island Hotel Corporation — as well as the firm’s designated operator of the Jekyll properties covered by the lease agreement.
Dykes was a close friend of Governor Talmage, future governor Marvin Griffin, State Highway Chairman James Gillis and the JIA Chairman and Georgia State Senator from Newnan, D.B. Blalock. Moreover, Blalock owned two businesses that sold road paving equipment, to include $85,000 $1,027,535 in 2025 $’s worth of equipment sold to the State of Georgia for use on the Jekyll paving projects. Dykes received subsequent paving contracts for the causeway road, as well as founding the Jekyll Insurance Corporation, which became engaged in Jekyll Island real estate and cottage rentals.
AJC, 23 July 1956
Over time, Jekyll Island became known in some circles as ‘Dykes Island’ given how much of the available, JIA leased business on the island he or members of his family and friends came to control. In a short period of time, Dykes had exclusive leases — directly or indirectly — on paving projects, building suppliers, hotel properties, to the extent that he essentially has leased all of the prime public lodging on the island: concessions, restaurants, a gas station and general contracting.
Eventually, it was his ever-increasing footprint on the island that gave him a significant cost advantage when bidding on projects since he already had crews, equipment, materials, and an inside track on when bids will be forthcoming, all with short, two-week requests for proposal (RFP) response requirements.
Moreover, Dykes was clearly a well-educated and shrewd businessman who accomplished much through his understanding of how politics worked and his ability to leverage relationships to gain inroads to additional opportunities without regard to things like ‘potential conflicts of interest’ and other business ethics issues. It was also quite revealing to find of the early leases for home building lots on Jekyll, thirteen were granted to current or former Georgia legislators, public officials or well-connected businessmen.
Sadly, and despite the clear appearance of conflicts of interest, cronyism, nepotism and the like, it was on 17 June 1955 when perhaps the best friend the Jekyll Island Club and most trusted member of the JIA Board of Directors, J.D. Compton voiced his overwhelming concerns to JIA Board Chairman D.B. Blalock, about irregularities he’d observed with regard to JIA purchasing, requisitions and invoices related to Dykes, suggesting he was prepared to distance himself from the looming controversies and criticism that would fall on the JIA.
It was 43-days later when J.D. Compton submitted his resignation from the JIA, citing his business commitments as still president of the Sea Island Company and health issues, catching most of the JIA Board and Authority leaders by surprise. A few weeks later, the Georgia Legislative Economy Committee launched an investigation of the JIA with tremendous backlash against the JIA on a wide range of issues, as well as on Governor Griffin.
Readers who are interested in far more detail on these turbulent times should at a minimum read Bab McDonald’s ‘Remember Jekyll Island‘ as it’s an easy and enjoyable read, even with its great detail. However, for anyone who wants to get into the detailed accounting at a micro-level, Nick Doms ‘From Millionaires to Commoners’will provide you far more detail than you can image; God bless him for all the time and effort he put into his his tour de force on the State Era history.”
A Restaurant & Snackbar Are Added to the Beach Pavilion & Bathhouse
By the the mid-1950’s, the 1948 Beachouse Pavilion had been expanded in 1956 to add a restaurant and snackbar to the south end 46. The restaurant was opened and operated as the Charcoal House from 1955 to 1963 by Jimmy Dykes Jekyll Island Hotel Corporation.
Note 46: The first restaurant was the Charcoal House operated by John Crooms, the father-in-law of Georgia Senator Jimmy Dykes of Cochran Georgia, Just south of the restaurant is the bright-white Big Dip Dairy Bar. These photos show the shoreline well after the State had removed all of the dunes in the early 1950s, leveling the shoreline and installing the concrete boardwalk in 1957 (see below) that ran from the Wayfarer to the Corsair Motel. The area once occupied by the boardwalk is now part of the brick patio on the ocean side of Tortuga Jacks.
Just to add some context to the location of the Beachhouse Pavilion and the“Big Dip Diary Bar” owned by the Millican husband & wife team opened just to the south in the parking lot that eventually became the home of the Peppermint Land Amusement Park. In the photos at the below left, just past the top edge of the dune above the golfers putting on the 9th hole green of the front nine of the Great Dunes now 9-hole course, just behind the flag you can see the lettering on the roof of the Big Dip Dairy Bar 47 in the background, as well as the cluster of trees at the Beachview and Shell Road intersection with the entry to the beach pavilion parking lot to the southeast of the 1st tee & 9th hole green.
Note 47: Once the new north and south bathhouses were opened in June 1958, the 1948 Beachhouse Pavilion was fully converted for use as a restaurant and cafeteria. A snack bar was eventually added, and the Big Dip Dairy Bar was demolished, with the MIllicans taking over the operation of the Charcoal House restaurant, eventually renamed the Jekyll Sandwich Hut.
Peppermint Land Amusement Park
It was in 1956 when Harvey Smith’s Southern Miniature Railroad Company operating as a concession at Calloway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, was granted a lease to establish an amusement park in the beachfront parking lot south of Shell Road and below the north beach house, restaurant and bathhouse. Named Peppermint Land Amusement Park, it featured a small roller coaster, go-cars, a miniature train, merry-go-rounds and a Ferris wheel.
Having survived the loss of his Ferris wheel during Hurricane Dora in 1964, what Smith was not able to survive was a change in the terms of his ten-year-old JIA lease when his lease was modified to raise the amount of net proceeds from profits to the JIA from 3% to 15%, and do-so on a month-by-month lease basis. The terms made it financially imprudent to rebuild his damaged amusement park and in July 1965 he removed his attractions and vacated the parking lot 48.
Note 48: It was in 1969 when the JIA installed a new attraction that was gaining popularity along the east coast, a $50,000 $441,384 in 2025 $’s 60-foot-tall ‘Giant Slide’, although the JIA called theirs a ‘Superslide’. It was erected in the center of the parking lot where Peppermint Land Amusement Park had been, and again I must assume no one with objective and related expertise was consulted before acquiring and installing the slide. It was not well-suited to be right next to the ocean with it’s saltwater mist, became unusable and within two years was dismantled in 1971.
A New Clubhouse for the Great Dunes Golf Course
In an interesting form of recycling for the time, and as noted earlier, it was in 1958 when the JIA used bricks salvaged from the recently demolished, arson fire-damaged Pulitzer/Albright Cottage to build some of the bathhouses in the Oleander Golf Course as well rebuild the old clubhouse49 at Great Dunes golf course. Initially, the Club EraTee House on the 10th tee of the Great Dunes course was razed and replaced with a new dual purposed Great Dunes clubhouse / beach pavilion and bath house by the JIA in 1948.
Note 49: emembering when the back-nine was added to what became the Walter Travis Great Dunes course in 1927, the 9-hole Oceanside Course clubhouse was relocated to the 10th tee and became known as the Tee House. The older and original Oceanside clubhouse remained in place. That structure is now used as the clubhouse for the miniature golf courses and as the Red Bug Pizza Restaurant that front the corner of Beachview and old Shell Roads.
The original 18-hole Jekyll Island putt-putt Golf Course was built at the same time the new all-brick clubhouse for the 9-hole Golf Course was built in 1958 next-to and behind the clubhouse, and across the street from Harvey Smith’s Peppermint Land Amusement Park. Eventually, a second and more challenging 18-hole mini-golf course was built at the same location. I’m left to assume after Harvey Smith closed his amusement park in 1965, an agreement was reached at some point whereby the miniature golf course was able to adopt the Peppermint Land name.
1956 – Island Picnic Areas
Lifeguards on the Beach
You remember those, right? I know I was a lifeguard in my teens working at the local, community pool in Cook County, Illinois, back in the 1970’s, just as my older sister was. Anyway, lifeguards were long since eliminated in the 1980’s at Jekyll Island when they opened the ‘Summer Waves’ Park in 1987 at the abandoned Marina Project. However, back in the early days when Jekyll Island first opened it beaches in the 1950’s they had ten lifeguard stands along the 1.75-mile long beach50 that provided summer jobs from June through August.
Note 50: It’s purported the ‘stand’ in the distance closer to the beach was a watchpost during World War II that still hadn’t been removed.
The Grass Airfield & Eventual Jekyll Island Airport
During the early 1950’s — while Jekyll Island State Park was closed to the public from 1951 until 1954 when the lift-bridge was opened — the JIA had the four-miles of underbrush between the wharf and north end of the island removed, and in the process razed the somewhat historically-significant 1898 Riverside golf course — it was one of the oldest in the U.S. — and also leveled the land to the west of Riverview Drive and used the soil to rebuild and improve Riverview Drive and repurposed it as a grass airstrip 51 for use in lieu of aircraft using the public beach as an airstrip.
Note 51: The grass airstrip was paved and extended in 1965 and the airport terminal was added in 1966. The runway was extended again in 1967 to its present length of 3,715-feet, and underwent a $1.4-million update in 2020 to address needed runway repairs and the addition of an aviation fuel depot that has resulted in an increase in air traffic. An update to the Georgia Statewide Aviation System Plan (GSASP) in 2017 included a recommendation to upgrade the Jekyll Island Airport to the 2017 standard for Level 1 airports at an estimated cost of $3,9-million, to include extending the runway and taxiway by 285-feet, replacing the current terminal and certain things that were already addressed in the 2020 airport improvements.
Early-on, prior to establishing the grass airfield on the island, private planes would use the beach at low-tide as an airfield. Edwin Gould was purportedly one of the first Club members to do so, taking other intrepid Club members for sightseeing flights from the beach. One of the Club’s associate members — Admiral David Sinton Ingalls of Cleveland, Ohio and the U.S. Navy’s only World War I Ace — was photographed on 18 March 1939 in what appears to be his Lockheed Vega, either having just landed or preparing to take-off from the beach.
As noted earlier, during the beginning of the State Era, a firm named Jekyll Aviation apparently ran an air taxi service to the island, as one of their aircraft [Number 3] was captured in a photo taken just below the 1948 Beach Pavilion on the beach.
Based on what’s visible in the photo, this would have been in the late 1940’s as the dunes to the south of the Beach Pavilion had not yet been removed by the JIA and the World War II U.S. Army Era watch tower at the end of Shell Road is still visible.
As noted in the previous Club Era Segment 2, while outdoors sports like hunting, fishing, swimming, bicycling, and golf were popular during the early heydays of the late 1800’s at the Jekyll Island Club, it was tennis that became all the rage after the turn of the century and the first tennis court at Jekyll Island was built in 1903 by Frank Goodyear, a year after he joined the Club 1902. It was located just to the east of where he subsequently built his Goodyear cottage in 1906.
Tennis proved so popular in the early 1900’s that two more outdoor clay-courts were installed just south of the Clubhouse in 1909, where the current croquet field is now located.
In 1913, Edward Gould added an indoor tennis court with men’s and women’s locker-rooms, restrooms and showers on the second story at a cost of $25,000 $818,121 in 2025 $’s that he allowed other members to use.
In 1929, the Morgan Tennis Center with a single indoor court was built and first opened in 1930, named for then club president J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr, which also had several outdoor tennis courts to the east of the building, where the Pier Street Shopping and Morgan Conference Center parking lots are now located.
The shingle-sided Morgan Tennis Center named in honor of Club president J. P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr. with its single indoor court completed in 19305 2 and used in parallel with the Gould indoor tennis court throughout the rest of the Club Era years, even after Edwin Gould passed in 1933, and into the early State Era years.
Note 52: The Morgan Tennis Center would be renovated in renovation in 1986, but a public-private partnership between the Jekyll Island Authority and the Jekyll Island Club Hotel led to its full restoration as a conference center in the mid-2010s.
Georgia Responds to the Issues by Restructuring the JIA
As noted in the outset of my overview of Georgia’s acquisition of Jekyll, in 1957 then Governor Marvin Griffin said during his State of the State address:
“Still with us is the perennial problem of what to do with Jekyll Island. I opposed its acquisition in the first instance because the State has no business running a beach resort. But it has been my view that since we have it we should make the best out of it we can.
The wisest course the State could follow would be to divest itself of this property if the approximate cost could be recouped.
I will not approve the expenditure of any more money for this undertaking except that appropriated to protect what the State has invested or to render it serviceable to the public.
Should the General Assembly evolve a plan for administration of the island removed from the cross-fire of factional politics, the effort will have my support.
It is my recommendation that residential or business lots should be leased or sold in fee simple.
Beach and other day-use areas should be reserved permanently for public use.”
In 1956, the Georgia General Assembly passed a Resolution creating a Jekyll Island Study Committee, based on the recommendations made by the Legislative Economy Committee and due to the divergence of opinion as to the best possible method of solving problems connected to Jekyll Island. The Committee was charged with determining whether it would be in the best interest of the citizens of the State to make any changes in the present method of operation, or whether some other method should be used for the disposition of the island.
The Georgia Legislature restructured the Authority in 1957, requiring board members to be elected officials instead of being appointed by the governor. The state attorney general, state auditor, public service commissioner, State Parks department director, and secretary of state were all made board members 53.
Note 53a: Like the 35/65 rule, the composition of the JIA and how it is established has been changed several times. The Jekyll Island Authority Board of Directors is the policy-making body for Jekyll Island and the Jekyll Island Authority, comprised of a nine-member board consisting of eight members appointed by the Governor to serve four-year terms, with the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources as ex-officio member. Two appointed board members must reside in one of the six coastal counties in Georgia. The Chairman is also appointed by the Governor to serve a one-year term and retains this position until replaced.
Note 53b: The JIA’s Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors and is responsible for the day-to-day operation and promotion of the island and for providing public services to island residents and businesses. The JIA Executive Director is assisted by eight other members, including a Deputy Executive Director, General Counsel, Director of Marketing & Communications, Jekyll Island Foundation Executive Director, Director of Human Resources, Chief Accounting Officer, Senior Director of Amenities AND Director of Conservation
Per the 1951 Roberts & Company Master Plan, in 1957 the construction of an all-concrete, 1.75-mile-long x 10-foot-wide ‘boardwalk beginning at the Wanderer Motel54 at its northmost terminus1and ending at the Corsair Motel55 at the southernmost terminus was completed at a cost of $65,000 $749,410 in 2025 $’s. It was thought it would attract motel developers by the JIA.
Note 54: A ‘joggle’ with a 0.3-mile extension to the north was added for the Jekyll Estates Motel after it secured a commercial lease in June 1957 and was the first new motel the island when it opened in July 1958
Note 55: Note that the Boardwalk was built before the future Corsair owners leased the lot and in 1959 800-feet of the southernmost end had to be removed by the JIA, along with relocating the South Picnic Area that would be on the Corsair’s leased land.
In an effort to reduce the cost of the project and several other planned projects that required the use of an inordinate amount of concrete, the JIA established its own, modest on-site concrete plant in the former Jekyll Island Club wagon and tool shed where they poured benches, picnic tables, signposts, cooking grills and water fountains installed around the island, purportedly saving $50,000 $560,512 in 2025 $’s as reported in a 1958 Atlanta Constitution-Journal report. Preparation of the shore for the boardwalk once again required the removal of two remaining sand dunes along Jekyll’s east shoreline and the creation of a substantial roadbed.
A series of 15-foot-tall palm trees were transplanted from Jekyll’s maritime forests and placed in-between the benches for the full length of the 1.75-mile boardwalk. Along with the aforementioned, self-produced benches were water fountains as well as outdoor showers.
Two new bathhouses at the north and south end of the boardwalk were added in 1958, given the sudden surge in visitors coming to see and enjoy the new boardwalk, where previously majestic 40-foot high natural dunes protected the islands eastern shoreline from erosion while creating an amazing wildlife and plant life habitat and the carefully crafted back-nine of the Great Dunes golf course sat nestled behind the dunes.
I found it interesting that as I looked at other photos from the boardwalk taken in the early 1960’s, like the above-right one of the kiosk at the intersection of Beachview Drive and GA SR-520, and the one at right of the boardwalk behind the Peppermint Land Amusement Park, in the background all of the palm trees appeared to have died after they were transplanted. All that remains are the trunks of the trees which uniformly have no visible palm fronds nor even clusters of palm leaf scars to suggest they were ever viable after being transplanted.
The Jekyll Island Tour Train STILL IN WORK
The Cherokee Campground STILL IN WORK
The 1st & 2nd shopping centers STILL IN WORK
The Aquarama & 1st Conference Center STILL IN WORK
Churches STILL IN WORK
1962 – Presbyterian church built and began holding services in 1963.
1965 – Methodist church built in 1965
1974 – Baptist Church opens, services previously held at Faith Chapel, 1960s & 1970s
New North and South Bathhouses Are Also Built and Opened in June 1958
As hoped, the concrete boardwalk between two future motel sites are even more popular by the summer of 1957 as even more visitors flock to the beach to enjoy the breeze coming off the ocean cooling visitors as they stroll along the boardwalk taking in the amazing view of the ocean. The JIA quickly approved the construction of a new north and the addition of an identical south, all-concrete bathhouse at the distant ends of the boardwalk, each housing restrooms, lockers, showers and a concession stand. The north bathhouse was built just south of Capt Wylly Road and the still to be built Wayfarer Motel, while the south bathhouse was built just north of where the still-to-be-built Corsair Motel will be located 56.
Note 56: Both bathhouses were razed in the late 1980’s due to deterioration of their concrete structures.
The Boardwalk Undergoes Redevelopment in the New Millennium
Around cy2000 it appears the northern 0.6-miles of the boardwalk were removed and replaced with the current, more sinuous 10-foot-wide multi-use path. Further down the beach and just beyond the parking lot across from the Peppermint Land at Jekyll Island Mini Golf, by 1993 a 0.25-mile section was removed to create a new park area, perhaps a first generation segment of the Great Dunes Park.
There was also what appears to be a park added at the southern end of the concrete boardwalk near the South Bath House — located just south of the Aquarama and now about where the Ocean Club Resort’s pool is located — by then as well, but it was removed between July 2010 and July 2011.
Only about 0.12-miles of the original concrete boardwalk remain, immediately north of Tortuga Jacks, to include one of two pair of concrete steps that used to take guests down to the leveled dunes.
The rest of the original boardwalk has been replaced by a new, 10-foot wide, poured concrete ‘faux tabby’ multi-use path to the west of the restored dunes called the ‘Ocean View Trail’ that covers the same 1.75-miles as the original concrete boardwalk, but with an additional 1/10th of a mile section added north of the original terminus at what is now the Holiday Inn Resort, Jekyll Island.. a fully-refurbished and modernized version of the enlarged two story Wanderer Motel.
Jekyll’s Spanish Entry Towers
Erected during the JIA’s Jekyll Island building boom in 1958, a pair of Spanish-style entrance towers guard the causeway. Once again, they were built using concrete blocks cast in the Jekyll concrete plant and red tile shingles. Early-on, wrought-iron banner was installed between the two towers, suspended above the road that read, “JEKYLL ISLAND, YEAR ROUND BEACH RESORT” that were likely removed some time ago, perhaps well before we first visited in 1993.
The 1958 – 1960 Motel Building Boom: Jekyll Estates Motel is the First
So, I’ll begin this entry with yet another graphic I created based on my various sources, but heavily upon Nick Dom’s Addendum 4 to “From Millionaires to Commoners” to provide readers with a sense of the timing and location of the first, commercial motels that providing lodging for visitors to Jekyll Island after had been opened to the public for three years.
Note that, in the interim, the only accommodations at the Jekyll Island State Park were the 450 or so rooms available in the Jekyll Island Hotel, San Souci Apartments and some of the cottages located in the Historic District managed by “Jekyll Island Hotels Incorporated” owned and operated by Georgia State Senator Jimmy Dykes.
The Mid-North End & St. Andrews Beach Motels Come First: 1957 – 1959
Three of the 1st Four Hotels on North Jekyll Island
The graphic above captures the years and key milestones for the the seven motels that were first built at the north and south ends of the 1957 concrete boardwalk and operated on leased commercial lots from the JIA, of which four still exist. The three motels that were built on the north end of the boardwalk are the oldest three surviving motels, all clustered together just north of Capt. Wylly Road.
What follows is that same information in the graphic with “Then” and “Now” images of the early motels and some other details that readers may find interesting. It’s important to note that many of these hotels struggled, changed ownership, and leaseholders several times over the years and those that weren’t demolished / razed after reaching the end of their useful lives, have been heavily remodeled and refurbished.
Jekyll Estates Motel, 1958Still Standing and in Use
Lots leased Summer 1957
First New Hotel Built on Jekyll Spring 1958
1st 20 Rooms Opened June 1958
16 Additional Room Opened in 1959
Renovated & Renamed Beachview Club Resort, 1997
Wanderer Motel, 1958Still Standing and in Use
Lots leased Summer 1957
1st 96 Rooms Opened June 1958
84 Additional Rooms Added late 1959
Purchased by Motel Properties, Inc, 1970
Renamed Comfort Inn Island Suites, 1987
Renamed Oceanside Inn & Suites in mid-90s
Closed in 2011
Acquired by Holiday Inn, Renovated and Reopened in 2015 as the Holiday Inn Jekyll Island Resort
Dolphin Motor Hotel, 1959Razed & Land Redeveloped in 2015
First Jekyll Motel Lots to be Leased March 1956
58 Room Hotel Opened August 1959
16 Additional Rooms Opened in 1959
Restaurant & Lounge Opened July 1959
Acquired & Operated by JIA in 1960
Motel & Restaurant Closed 1966
Acquired by JIA as Group Camp & Youth Center, 1966
Operated by UGA as 4-H Club, 1987
All but the historic Bath House demolished in 2015
$17M JIA Redevelopment and New 4H Camp Jekyll 2015-2016.
Seafarer Apartments, 1959Still Standing and in Use
Lots Leased & Opens as 21-Unit Apartments in late 1959
Converts to a 21-Room Motel in 1960
Expanded to 71-Rooms 1965-1971
Renamed Seafarer Inn & Suites 1970’s
Renamed Quality Inn & Suites – Seafarer Inn & Suites, 1999
Acquired by Choice, Renovated and retained name as Seafarer Inn & Suites, 2019
The Mid-South-End Jekyll Motels Came Next: 1960 – 1972
Corsair Motel, 1960Still Standing and in Use
Lots Leased & 160 Rooms Open 1960
Renamed Ladha Island Inn, 1980
Renamed Jekyll Inn & Resort, 1984
Renamed Days Inn Jekyll, 1986
Extensive Renovation, Reduced to 124 Rooms and Renamed Days Inn & Suites, 1999
Buccaneer Motor Lodge, 1961Razed in November 2007, Redeveloped in 2024/2025
Lots Leased & 96 Rooms Opened 1961 with Sam Snead’s name added
Sam Snead Sponsorship Ends & his Name Dropped, 1962
Expanded to 206 Rooms in 1967-1969
Renamed Quality Inn Buccaneer, 1985
Renamed Clarion Resort Buccaneer, 1990
Renamed Buccaneer Beach Resort until closed in 2003 or 2004
Demolished in November 2007
Redeveloped by LNWA as Seaside Resort with 25 Single Family Homes, 2024
Trammell Crow’s Proposed Canopy Bluff Hotel & Condominium Development
One of the early, controversial development plans targeted the vacant Buccaneer Hotel property for redevelopment. Of the proposed Canopy Bluff Hotel & Condominiums — that would have 300 full-service hotel rooms and another 127 condominium rental program residences, restaurants, and meeting spaces — Ben Porter, then the chairman of the Jekyll Island Association board said, “It’s a great day for Jekyll and a great day for Georgia. This beautiful State Park island has some old facilities like this Buccaneer, and this is the first step in the revitalization of Jekyll where we’ll have some beautiful new hotels and accommodations for all price ranges and Georgians.”
Going further, Porter commented how the Trammell Crow Co., New South Partners and Global Asset Alternatives partnership was “taking a leadership role in helping us plan for the island’s future,” in creating the Canopy Bluff. As you can see from the artists concepts, these massive, multi-story buildings would create a space that looked like what you’d find on privately-owned beachfront land in Jacksonville, Beach or Panama City Beaches in Florida.
Thankfully, like some of the future development plans for Jekyll Island, the Trammell Crow’s high-rise hotel and condo’s never came to pass for a variety of reasons. But, it was the first major confrontation between the development-minded JIA and those who had an interest in preserving Jekyll Island State Park as something other than an over-developed, Atlantic or Gulf Coast property which is what many major developers had in mind.
Sidebar 10:A Glimpse Into the 1960’s – Present Hospitality Industry on Jekyll Island
Construction began on the first Holiday Inn on Jekyll Island in 1960, and it opened for business in June 1961. One of its key features was an in-ground swimming pool shaped like the State of Georgia.
It quickly became one of the premiere hotels on Jekyll Island, being somewhat secluded down on the mid-south end of the island and separated from the Corsair Inn by the Sam Snead’s Buccaneer Motor Lodge that also opened in 1961, but was built within the natural tidal forested landscape instead of being clear-cut like the Holiday Inn’s lot was, to include removal of the dunes that were left undisturbed at the Buccaneer.
A year-and-a-half later, in January 1963, the hotel was acquired by William Stuckey, Jr., the son of Georgia businessman Will Stuckey Sr. who founded the Stuckey Pecan Log Candy Bar company in Eastman, Georgia, and grew it into a chain of roadside stores, many with gas stations and small restaurants that numbered 29 by 1953 and grew to over 100 by 1964.
His son, ‘Bill’ Stuckey, Jr. — who would go-on to be a five-term Congressman from Georgia’s 8th district from 1967 to 1977 — changed the name in January 1963 to Stuckey’s Carriage Inn. It was the second of four Stuckey Carriage Inns, as the family decided to follow the hospitality business model of Kemmons Wilson’s Holiday Inn and the Johnson family’s Howard Johnson brand. The first Stuckey Carriage Inn was built in 1960 in the Stuckey’s home town of Eastman, Georgia, with additional locations opened after they acquired the Holiday Inn on Jekyll Island in 1963 at Altamont, Illinois, Jacksonville, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee.
The Jekyll Island Stuckey’s Carriage Inn billed itself as a “year ‘round resort” and with the temperate climate of Southeast coastal Georgia, its in-ground pool, ocean front beach and the other, former Jekyll Island Club amenities that were now part of what the State of Georgia offered visitors to the island, including an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, fishing and vast amounts of undeveloped lands filled with natural wildlife.
The Middle East oil crisis and U.S. embargos that drove-up the price of fuel in the 1970’s, the tourism industry suffered as people stopped travelling for leisure and Stuckey’s sold the Jekyll Island Carriage Inn and the new owners renamed it the Atlantic Carriage Inn. In the 1980s by which time it was a old and tired motel. It was sold again and operated as a Ramada Inn motel, then remodeled in 1998 and sold again in 2004 and shortly thereafter, closed. It was demolished in 2005 and was an empty eyesore parcel of land for the next 14 years, joined as an empty lot when the Buccaneer was demolished in 2007 that is just now being redeveloped into a high-end, small community of single family homes.
Therefore, aside from the JIA’s efforts to restore the oceanside dunes, the dual-brand Residence Inn and Courtyard by Marriott sits on the same parcel of land that was clear-cut and raised when the first Holiday Inn on Jekyll Island was built in 1960-1961. Thankfully, thoughtful development encouraged by advocacy groups like “Save Jekyll Island”, the two neighboring parcels still have ‘old growth’ trees and landscape intact and have been redeveloped in such a way they remain screened from Beachview Drive, the neighboring sites and the ocean as semi-densely wooded spaces as they were when they were first developed back in the late 1950’s – early 1970’s. .
To make this point, the following is an three-view series of satellite images from 2004, 2007 and 2024 of the four major, mid-south current and former motel lots and how they’ve changed over the past 20-years.
Holiday Inn Beach Resort, 1972Razed in 2006, Redeveloped in 2010 & 2018
Lots leased, 205 Rooms Opened 1974
Only 4-Story Hotel on Jekyll
Demolished in 2006 after closing the year before
Southern parcel partially Redeveloped in 2010 by LNWA as 138 Room Hampton Inn
In 2018, larger, northern parcel redeveloped by LMWA & Carolina Holdings Group as 36-home Ocean Oaks
Motel Redevelopment on the South End of the Boardwalk
The following series of satellite images tries to capture the evolution of the three motels built at the south end of the concrete boardwalk in the 1960’s, and one of the three hotels built in the 1970’s: the second Holiday Inn was built just south of it’s 1961 Holiday Inn after it was acquired by Bill Stuckey in 1963 & renamed Stuckey’s Carriage Inn. So, by 1972 there were four motels sitting side-by-side.
By 2003, both the Georgia Coast Inn —the original 1961 Holiday Inn — is closed, followed by the Clarion Buccaneer — the original 1961 Sam Snead Buccaneer — and by 2005 the 1972 Holiday Inn fell into bankruptcy, are closed and/or eventually deemed to be economically unfeasible to renovate, and slated for demolition. The 1972 Holiday Inn demolished in 2006 property is subdivided with the redevelopment of the south-end of the property becoming home to a new Hampton Inn in 2010, and only the former 1960 Corsair Motel 57 survives to this day, having become the Days Inn in 1986 which it remains.
Note 57: If you’re curious why the lots just beyond the Days Inn [1960 Corsair] motel and the land to the west is heavily wooded — notwithstanding the Georgia Coast Inn which was built as a Holiday Inn in 1961 — it is because the Corsair sits on what were the 14th and 15th holes at the south end of the 1927 Great Dunes golf course back-nine, excavated and leveled back in 1952-1953.
Leon N. Weiner & Associates-led Mid-South Island Motel Redevelopment
As you can see in this next series of satellite images that look at the original four beachfront hotel properties at the south end of the boardwalk, the post Trammell Crow and Reynolds family Linger Long Development Company (LLDC) development lead mostly by Leon N. Weiner & Associates (LNWA) while aggressive, yielded new properties that include:
The 138-room Hampton Innhotel nestled on the heavily wooded south end of the former 1972 Holiday Inn property demolished.
On the remaining 1972 Holiday Inn still wooded property just north of the Hampton Inn, LNWA redeveloped with the low-rise 36-home Ocean Oaks residential community.
On the former 1961 Holiday Inn property, LNWA redeveloped with the low-rise, dual-brand 209-room Marriott Courtyard Suites & Residence Inn hotel.
As for the 1961 Buccaneer property — an eyesore since it was raised in 2008 and nearly became the Canopy Bluff development that same year — LNWA redeveloped the property with the 25-home Seaside Retreat residential home community that is presently being built as I write this in May 2025.
The Re-Routing of North Beachview Drive in 1959/1960
Back in 1954 as the JIA was in the process of making the island both more accessible and attractive to potential visitors, Beachview Drive was knitted together from existing roads and bike trails to run along the recently leveled dunes, connecting the Club Era Morgan Road with Bourne Road at Baker Road to provide visitors with an uninterrupted view of the beach and ocean. However, as what is now the Beach Village area began to develop, first with a shopping center in 1958 and the JIA considering a sports, recreation and conference complex in the same space, it drove a decision to re-route 1.1-miles of Beachview Drive
The purpose of removing the dunes was to create unobstructed views from what became the Beachview Drive to attract motel developers and potential residents to the beachfront lots, while also re-using the soil as fill for the island-side of the access roads from the soon-to-be-completed Jekyll Island Causeway and Jekyll Creek lift-bridge.
Quoting from page 55 of Nick Doms must-read “Millionaires to Commoners”,“The views must have been spectacular since no dune was left untouched, and one could amost touch the salty water from a slow moving car. The roadbed and hightide waterline are so close they almost seem to kiss and embrace one another with each incoming tide.”
In the late 1950’s, another ~1.1-miles of dunes were leveled between what is now The Cottages and where the Villas by the Sea meets the current Driftwood Beach. The purpose of that project was to relocate a portion of the 1954 Perimeter Road 58 400-feet to the west and away from the beachfront to where it is currently located, while also creating additional and valuable beachfront hotel lot property eventually developed into the 1971 Sand Dollar Motel and the 1972 By-The-Sea Motel.
Note 58: Those who are interested can still find 2/10th of a mile of the original, oceanfront Beachview Drive between the northeast corner of The Cottages and the southeast corner of the Villas by the Sea, as well as a short segment at the Driftwood Beach parking area where the 1954 and 1959 Beachview Drive split.
Jekyll Island has become our ‘Happy Place’ that we’ve visited three or more times a year since rediscovering it back in 2022. Our explorations of the island include the Historic District, sights like Driftwood and St. Andrews Beaches as well as the Great Dunes Beach and engagement now as both ‘adoptive parents’ of sea turtles undergoing rehabilitation and being members of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, never-mind enjoying all of the other amazing experiences Jekyll Island can provide. However, of all those experiences, the one that we so appreciate is the stress-free, amazing cycling we enjoy on Jekyll’s road, paved multi-use / bicycle paths and the off-road trails.
Back in July 2024 during one of our ‘quarterly visits’ to Jekyll, where we enjoy a daily ride around the island on our ‘go-anywhere’ hardtail, fat-tire tandem bicycle, we decided it might be worthwhile to create a ‘Virtual Bicycle Ride Around the Jekyll Island Bike Paths and Trails’ by capturing our ride on video with my old GoPro cameras that had been gathering dust for several years.
Before we headed to Jekyll, I had to pull-out and get my now antiquated ‘GoPro’ camera gear sorted out; most of which was acquired second-hand over 15-years ago when I decided it might be fun to capture video some of our off-road tandem cycling adventures, and then stepped-up my game when we began motorcycle touring from 2011 to 2022, before closing that chapter.
Needless to say, I was able to amass quite a collection of GoPro gear by buying other people’s used equipment with all the accessories that came with them, and then added a few newer, better cameras over the years.
However, since 2019 when we flew to the British Virgin Islands for a 10-day catamaran cruise with another couple and used the gear to capture video of on-deck activity like me on the helm as we plowed-through some angry seas, and of course our snorkeling dives, it’s been gathering dust ever since.
It was actually Miss Debbie who said, “You know, we should pull out those old GoPro cameras and use them to capture some video of our rides around Jekyll Island.” And, for this trip, I finally did that. Again, it was a lot of gear but it turns out, after all these years it all worked pretty well.
We began Day 1 of our visit with our first of two tandem rides around the island and the time on the bike was everything we needed, hoped for and thoroughly enjoyed.
While not our usual three days of riding on a four-day visit, we rode our 20+ mile ‘loop’ around the Island on Monday and Tuesday with two cameras on both days.
That yielded about 8-hours of video I ended-up reducing into three video’s, a 4-minute video of the ‘South Jekyll Island 7-mile loop’, a 5-minute video of pedaling a couple miles in and around the ‘Historic District’, and then a 6-minute video of the ‘North Jekyll Island loop.’
The highlight of our two days of riding included our surprise sighting and capturing on video a Roseate Spoonbill that came out of the Crab Creek Marsh area along with a few white ibises that I continue to mistakenly call great white egrets. Regardless, it was an amazing sight and perhaps the most amazing moment of our 40+ miles of riding on Jekyll Island from that visit.
So, here now are the three videos our little ‘project’ yielded. For those who’ve ridden the trails and paths, perhaps it will bring back memories and fuel your next outing, for those who’ve thought about it but never done any cycling on Jekyll, perhaps it will inspire a future outing on a two-wheel pedal bike, and for anyone who never knew about, or considered cycling on the island, not knowing what to expect… perhaps a ‘bucket list’ item to pursue?
Note: Sorry about the watermark on the videos from the software host, and note that you’ll need to hit “Expand” to see the subtitles that provide cues as to what you’re seeing in some of these three videos.
Part 1: Our tandem bicycle ride begins in the Jekyll Island Village headed south along the Beach Road bicycle path, with several cross-island, off-road excursions before heading back north on the River Road bicycle path and trails.
Part II: Our ride resumes along the old Rockefeller-Crane Bicycle Path into the Historic District from Ben Fortson Parkway, and then we ride along the River past Millionaires Row and the Jekyll Island Club and Hotel grounds.
Part III: Our daily loop ride around Jekyll Island continues onto the North Island Loop.
Segment 2 of 3, 13 November 2023Word Count 33,877, 112-minute Reading Time with 365 Images
The Original 1886 Jekyl Island Clubhouse, Just After Completion
Note that, this is not an original work. Instead, it is my attempt at building a consolidated, chronological narrative with related illustrations from several excellent books and on-line resources that provide a very detailed account of the Jekyll Island history. As I began to compile my narrative I found I needed to break it down into smaller compilations, I suspect in much the same way as the authors of the books that I reference below discovered.
This segment begins where my Pre-Club Era Segment ends, and was originally intended to go through the present day Jekyll Island State Park. However, just the Club Era was overwhelming, I’ve not included anything other than the story of the Club’s formation and the buildings occupied by the Club members, inclusive of the Club Hotel, Apartments and the fifteen member-built cottages, as well as a segment on the end of the Club Era.
The most valuable of the following books are the ones by June Hall McCash with various different co-authors, including her late husband William Barton McCash and Brenden Martin; they are:
For anyone looking to gain a full appreciation for the subject, I strongly encourage you to find and read these works and see all of the images they include. They are compelling to read and filled with far more details and facts than what I’d characterize as my high-level overview of the Club Era. Again, it was originally my intention to provide a more comprehensive look than what I have thus far composed in my spare time that quickly turned into an Alice-in-Wonderland like journey down multiple Rabbit Holes.
The following guide is something I stumbled-over while doing my research that provides a very brief overview of the Jekyll Island Club History via a timeline, and also includes an excellent written guide for visitors to the Jekyll Island Clubhouse and grounds. Click on the image to open the full, two-page guide.
Club Membership was a Luxury Expense, not an Investment
Reader Notes:
In order to help readers gain some additional context about the Club Era, I have in many cases included the years and sometimes dates when key personalities were born and died, as the ages and eras play an important role in why and when the Club began its terminal path to closure in the 1940’s.
I’ve also added notations on cited dollar values from ‘back-in-the-day’ of what their current value is as of November 2023 when adjusted for inflation, i.e., in 2023 $’s.
I’ve also used, in most cases, the post 1929 spelling of Jekyll Island with both “L’s” except when referencing the founding of the Jekyl Island Club and in other proper names using the original spelling of Jekyl such as the name of the steamer yacht Jekyl Island after islands’ name’s spelling was legally changed by the state of Georgia to correct the 195-year-old error.
Oh, and yes… you’ll likely come across typo’s and grammatical errors; my apologies. I’m my own proofreader and editor, which is not as effective as having fresh-eyes to review a work.
Viewing Suggestions & Recommendations
Scaling: Given the WordPress typefaces, type size and formatting — never mind the length and all of the images — my compilations are best viewed on a larger desktop computer flat screen monitor, with perhaps a Zoom Setting of 110% or 125%, as it will make it much easier to read, especially for the current year values in superscript that follow then-year dollar amounts.
Hyperlinks:You’ll find hyperlinked text in the various tables of contents for the main headings and sidebars that can be used to ‘jump to them’ vs. trying to scroll to them. You’ll also note the major section headings in each table of contents that appear in blue text are also hyperlinked. And, throughout the ‘document’ you’ll find hyperlink that can be used to jump-back to the tables of contents and indexes to speed-up navigating forward and backward in the document.
Like all hyperlinks, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the blue colored and sometimes Bold text and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to that section of the document.
Links to Other Internet Sites: You will also sometimes findarticle names or other outside sources in Blue Text or sometimes Bold Blue Text when also associated with an image that I have mentioned inside the body of a paragraph or in “Notes” that indicates they are links to that article or source.
Once again, like other hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the blue colored text and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to a new window with that source.
Images: In many cases, unless it’s obvious from the accompanying text what an image is related to, I have included an image I will have used bold text in the body of the document next to the image that helps explain it. And, to make the images easier to see, I’ve done my best to ensure a larger and scalable image of every embedded image in my compilations can be opened with a click in a new window to provide far-greater detail.
As it is for hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the image and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it and the image will open in a new window.
John Eugene DuBignon, Newton Finney & The Jekyll Island Club
Between 1875 and 1885, ownership of Jekyll Island was consolidated under John Eugene DuBignon [b.1849, d.1930], the son of Joseph DuBignon, grandson of Henry Charles DuBignon, and great grandson of Christophe Poulain DuBignon.
John Eugen became an entrepreneur engaged in banking, manufacturing, and shipping in Brunswick, who also saw Jekyll’s potential as a private hunting preserve now that it was no longer viable as a plantation following the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 186 during the third year of the American Civil War.
John Eugene DuBignon Acquires Jekyll Island
Since John Eugene had no claim to the island because his father, Joseph DuBignon, died before Jekyll was divided among his uncles and aunt, he began acting on his vision and pursued opportunities to acquire all four parcels of the island. Between 1879 and 1885, he eventually bought the island for what amounted to $13,000 ~$411,500 in 2023 $’s in four separate transactions.
The Southern Third – The 26-year-old John Eugene easily acquired the land on the south end of Jekyll — the 1,500 acres below beach road –– following the death of his uncle, Charles DuBignon, who died bankrupt in 1875. Charles’ widow, Ann V. Grantland, sold the inherited share of the island at auction in 1879 to settle a lawsuit and restore her financial stability for $4,500 $138,000I n 2023 $’s: the successful bidder was John Eugene. It was on the southern third that he established a farm where he raised Devon cattle and in 1884 built a stick style wood-framed farmhouse where he lived with his wife Frances and daughter Josephine.
The Middle Third– In 1883, he acquired John Couper’s former inherited share of the island — the portion of the island north of the beach road to the area known as Rock Bois — from Brunswick merchants Friedlander and Anderson, who had no use for the land. He paid $4,000 $122,000in 2023 $’s cash, less than the amount of his uncle’s $5,235.26 $159,000 in 2023 $’s debt they had just settled with it’s their recent acquisition.
Aunt Eliza’s 30-Acres – In June 1885, he persuaded his spinster aunt Eliza DuBignon to deed-over her 30-acres known as Bryan’s Old Field for the promised sum of $100 $3,165in 2023 $’s, a sum that was still unpaid at the time of her death in October 1886.
The Northern Third– John Eugene thought he purchased his late uncle Henry Charles inherited third of the island — 3,000 acres north of Rock Bois to the end of the island — in May 1885 when he paid Mary Tufts $3,500 $111,000 In 2023 $’s to settle his uncle’s debt, believing she had clear title. The court ruled otherwise and ordered the land be auctioned-off to settle a lingering “Equity of Redemption” issue. John Eugene had actually been actively working behind the scenes throughout the Mary Tufts lawsuit in an effort to acquire the land. To protect his $3,500 payment to Tufts, on 27 May 1885, he made certain he was at the auction and successfully acquired the title for $1,000.$32,000 in 2023 $’s, ultimately paying the same amount of $4,500 that he paid for his uncle Charles south third of the island.
His entrepreneurial sense was reinforced when the burned-out, Dungeness mansion on Cumberland Island was acquired by Andrew Carnegie’s younger brother, Thomas M. Carnegie, in 1881 who built a new mansion on the site. Although Thomas Carnegie died from pneumonia in 1886 before his 59-room Queen Anne style mansion and grounds were completed, his wife Lucy continued to live at Dungeness where she built other estates for her children and eventually owned 90% of the island by the early 1900’s.
Dungeness was originally a hunting lodge built by James Oglethorpe in 1736. After being abandoned, Nathanael Greene acquired 11,000 acres in 1783 to settle a debt, just before he died in 1786. In 1803, his widow Catharine Littlefield Greene built a four-story tabby mansion over a Timucuan shell mound that was abandoned during the U.S. Civil War and burned in 1866.
Originally from Sackets Harbor, New York, 21-year-old Newton Finney [b.1835, d.1910] first came to Jekyll Island by way of Fon du Lac, Wisconsin in 1856 with the United States Coast Survey (USCS) to help chart the topography of Saint Simons Sound and Brunswick Harbor.
During this assignment, he met his future wife, Josephine DeBignon, whom he later married on 17 April 1860 in nearby Brunswick, Georgia. He came to know the DuBignon family history, its ties to Jekyll Island and also befriended his brother-in-law, John Eugene DuBignon.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, Finney severed his ties to the USCGS given his new ties to the south, and obtained a commission in the Confederate Army, attaining the rank of captain of engineers during the Civil War.
Like many, Finney lost the Georgia property and significant wealth he had acquired before the war. Following the war, Finney partnered with important political and social figures — including Oliver King, a wealthy New York broker and railroad supplier — and began to rebuild his wealth. He subsequently moved his family to New York in 1873, where he became an up-and-coming financier and member of the prestigious New York City Union Club.
DuBignon Searches for Buyers as he Acquires the Island
John Eugen persisted in his efforts to regain ownership of the Island with the goal of selling it at a profit. While still trying to secure ownership of his Aunt’s grant and the north third of the island, John Eugene began to market the Island as a hunting preserve to potential buyers from New York. In mid-March 1885, John Eugen entertained his first prospective buyers for a hunting expedition that failed to yield the desired interest. However, a month later, a second group visited the island including 35-year-old New York businessman John Claflin, who agreed in provide financial assistance to John Eugene in the form of short-term loans via $10,700 ~$346,564 in 2023 $’s in promissory notes with the title to Jekyll Island as collateral so Dubignon could gain clear title to the island and move forward with the sale to Claflin.
To that end, on 16 June 1885 John Eugene recorded three promissory notes to Claflin: one for $350 ~$11,336 in 2023 $’sn payable in 6-months, one for $350 ~$11,336 in 2023 $’s and one for $10,000 ~$323,891 in 2023 $’s payable in one year to cover his $3.500 ~$113,362 in 2023 $’s payment to Mary Tufts, the $4,000 ~$129,556 in 2023 $’s balance of his payment to Friedlander, $3,100 ~$100,400 in 2023 $’s for miscellaneous expenses and $100 ~$3,238 in 2023 $’s for his debt to Eliza DuBignon.
However, by this time Claflin was having second thoughts about becoming the sole owner of an island, and John Eugene was also having second thoughts about selling the island to a lone buyer. It was his brother-in-law Finney and his partner Oliver King who once again encouraged John Eugene to let them market the hunting preserve and resort as a club to a syndicate of wealthy New York investors that would yield a significantly higher profit to John Eugene, never mind a substantial commission to Finney and King. DuBignon shared this alternative scenario with Claflin who agreed — with some relief –– to release him from the sale. Moreover, Claflin also ended up not only helping to promote the club to potential investors back in New York, he became one of the founding members.
With clear title in hand, John Eugene along with Finney, Oliver King, and three others petitioned the Glynn County Court for approval to create a corporation in Glynn County Georgia for the purpose of selling shares in an exclusive winter retreat and resort offering hunting, fishing, yachting, with a clubhouse and operating trains and launch as deemed necessary. They successfully incorporated their proposed enterprise as the “Jekyl Island Club” on December 9, 1885.
On February 17, 1886, Finney signed an official agreement with John Eugene, who sold Jekyll Island with all improvements and livestock thereon to Finney’s Jekyll Island Club Corporation for $125,000 ~$4,001,000 in 2023 $’s after having been in the hands of the DuBignon family since 1794. The clubhouse would be built next to John Eugene’s house and farm within what became the 240-acre Jekyll Island Historic District.
As planned, to finance the construction of the Club’s main facilities, they agreed to sell 100 shares of the Jekyll Island ClubCorporation stock to 50 people at $600 a share ~$19,500/share in 2023 $’s for a total investment of $63,600 ~$2,077,300 in 2023 $’s in the Club. However, there was still a catch: the corporation would need to secure the the sale of the 100 shares of stock by 1 April 1886, otherwise the sale would be of no effect leaving Claflin potentially tied to his earlier commitment to buy the island from John Eugene.
Finney quickly sold six of the first seven pair of shares to the men who signed the charter petition: himself, DuBignon, Oliver King, Richard Ogden, William D’Wolf, and Charles Schlatte and, though not named, I suspect the 7th pair of the first shares was sold to Lloyd Aspinwall, who was also a founding member of the Club. Finney then issued invitations to many members of the Union Club with strong business and social ties, as well as wealthy businessmen at the Chicago Club and, to a lesser degree, in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco. In all, Finney was able to find 53 people to join the Club, including wealthy luminaries such as then 52-year-old Henry Hyde, 52-year-old Marshall Field, 49-year-old J.P. Morgan, 39-year-old Joseph Pulitzer, and 37-year-old William K. Vanderbilt who were willing to invest in the yet-to-be-built Club on the site-unseen barrier island off the coast of southeast Georgia.
John Eugene DuBignon was the only “local resident’ who was a member of the Club, and his modest farm house on the island still stands in the Historic District near the more elegant “cottages” built by wealthy club members over the next 46-years. In fact, the stick style farmhouse he built in 1884 was originally located on what became the site of the San Souci apartments, and in 1896 relocated to become the superintendent’s cottage, then later served as the “ClubCottage,” a guesthouse for Club members and island visitors. Although technically never a ‘cottage’ in the true sense of the Jekyl Island Club vernacular, it is now referred to as the DuBignon Cottage.
After the Jekyl Island Club Corporation acquired the Island on 17 February 1886, on 1 April the executive committee met in New York to make the final $125.000 ~$4,177,859 in 2023 $’s payment to John Eugene: $50,000 ~$1,671,143 in 2023 $’s from the Club’s accounts and $75,000 ~$2,506,715 in 2023 $’s with the first issue of 150 20-year mortgage bonds at $500/ea ~$16,711 in 2023 $’s bearing 4.5% interest. The Mercantile Trust Company of New York was the trustee and held the title to the island. Later in the day, the executive committee created the constitution, by-laws, and to nominate officers for the Club. The first president was Lloyd Aspinwall, vice president was Judge Henry Elias Howland, treasurer was Franklin M. Ketchum, and Richard L. Ogden became secretary. After seven long years, the “Jekyll Island Club” came to be in 1886.
Lloyd Aspinwall served just 5 months as the Clubpresident before he died suddenly. Henry Howland then took up the position as president of the Club, Richard Ogden became the Clubsuperintendent when the Clubopened in January 1888, and Clubfounder Newton Finney resigned from the executive committee to become secretary of the Jekyll Island Club Corporation.
The executive committee also conducted a little public relations business…
Likely based on a press release used to create an article in the Sunday leisure section of the New York Times on 4 April 1886 andunder the title of, a new “association of wealthy gentlemen” that went on to read, “It is predicted that the Jekyl Island Club is going to be the ‘swell’ club … inasmuch as many of the members are intending to erect cottages and make it their Winter Newport.”
Not quoted but paraphrased, the source noted, “Ladies would enjoy all the privileges of their husbands, fathers, and brothers. They would fish, shoot, ride, and camp out. Family participation was encouraged as well.”
The Executive Committee Tour & Plan for Development
In May 1886, the executive committee met and toured the island, by which time DuBignon had ensured the island was stocked with plenty of wild game. The committee members who’d not seen the island before were purportedly impressed by the the Spanish Moss-draped Live Oak and Magnolia-dotted barrier island with it’s accessibility to yachts and weather that would be conducive to sailing, fishing, and golfing… not just in the winter months, but year round.
The committee established plans for a large clubhouse that would provide lodging for members and serve as the island’s social center. Chicago architect Charles Alexander was hired to design, draw up the plans and oversee completion of the Queen Anne style clubhouse, while Horace Cleveland — one of the best-known landscape architects in the country — was hired to lay out the grounds. It was Cleveland who recommended the clubhouse not face east towards the ocean, but west towards the river and renowned marshes of Glynn with fabulous sunsets that were very calming to view.
While engaged in developing the landscape plan for the Club, seventy-three-year-old Cleveland wrote to fellow architect Frederick Law Olmstead that “it took all the resolution I could muster to traverse on foot or on horseback the areas of forest I had to explore, and in spite of every possible precaution, I was bitten and stung from head to foot.” He determined the Jekyl Club would possess a “style of severe simplicity” and remain a “natural paradise.”Source
Ground was broken on the clubhouse building in mid-August 1886, Alexander promised its completion by 1 August 1887, but he fell behind schedule. It was not finished until 1 November 1887, at a cost of $45,000 $1,425,000 in 2023 $’s.
Alexander’s drawing of the proposed Jekyll Island Clubhouse was published in the 8 January 1887 issue of American Architect and Building News, and depicts a rambling Queen Anne hotel with corner turret and wraparound veranda, bay windows, extended chimneys and an overall asymmetrical design Source
In terms of a more detailed description, the four-story, Queen Anne style club house featured sixty guest rooms; dining facilities; rooms for reading, cards, and billiards; and a barber shop.
There were three Club dining rooms — one for servants, one for children, and one for adults only.
Quarters included single and double bedrooms, with or without parlor and bath.
Prices ranged from $1.50 to $6 per night ~$50 to $200 in 2023 $’s , with guests paying 20% more than members.
The top floor was originally to be reserved for servants, but by May 1888, a separate servants’ annex was constructed northeast of the clubhouse.
In the process of building, Alexander faced incompetency, sickness, and an inadequate pier, but he finally declared the grand hotel ready in November of 1887.
Under ConstructionDuBignon House in ForegroundLandscaping in Work
Getting to and from Jekyll Island during the Club Era
Remembering Jekyll Island was truly an island without land-access, everyone and everything that needed to come and go from the island had to do so by water on ships, barges, boats and launches with shallow drafts, primarily between the Brunswick harbor and the small pier on Jekyll Creek located on the southeastern side of the island. For even the fastest steam-powered launches it was an hour-long journey each way.
Large steam-powered vessels like those of the Mallory Steamship Line delivered Club staff and sundry personal items including carriages, horses and hounds to its wharf at Brunswick Harbor. From there, smaller steam-powered craft would be contracted to transfer them to the Jekyll Island wharf for off-loading. Throughout the club’s operation during high tides large ships and yachts were also able to sail into Jekyll Creek to off-load passengers and cargo, to include regular delivery of coal, oil and other larger cargo.
The wharf at Jekyll was deemed unfit for landing building materials and equipment by Alexander during construction of the clubhouse, as well as the roads and infrastructure on the island. Therefore, in addition to designing and overseeing the construction of the clubhouse, Alexander also had to design and oversee the modification of Jekyll’s wharf and establish the roads and infrastructure while making due with hired barges from Brunswick, as the ones he’d been provided with were inadequate.
As the Club neared it’s opening, it acquired its own steam and small gasoline-engine powered vessels to transport staff, guests and personal luggage to and from Jekyll Island as well as its’ own staff to captain, crew, maintain and manage the crafts’ docking, boarding and luggage handling as well as other wharf operations.
And, while I’m sure it’s true that club members who owned large, sea-going yachts like the Morgans, Vanderbilt, Lorillard, Stillman, Astor, Manville, Pulitzer’s, Baker, Stotesbury, Crane, Vail, Bourne, Gould and others would have used them for passage down the Atlantic coast on visits to Jekyll when it was practical, the large ships substantial size crews would either dock in Brunswick to off-load their owners, family, guests and luggage that would then be ferried to the island by smaller vessels, or drop anchor at the northwest end of the island. From there, their crews they would use their own launches or have those from the club ferry their charges, not necessarily heading down or dropping anchor in the somewhat narrow, deeper navigation channel on Jekyll Creek.
It would have certainly been a great vision to imagine several of these 100 to 300-foot grand yachts with dozens of crew members — e.g., Pulitzer’s steam-powered yacht SY Liberty had a length of 268 feet, displaced over 1,607 gross tons, and had a crew of over 50 –– anchored side-by-side in Jekyll Creek but that was not the case. Quite often, their yachts would sail-on to other destinations while their owners vacationed on the island, or would likely undergo scheduled maintenance and crew leave to coincide with their downtime.
The Jekyll Island Club’s Yachts and Launches
Note: I was motivated to create this ‘new’ subsection on getting to and from Jekyll Island during the Club Era by the Fall/Winter 2024 edition of 31•81 article entitled ‘The Boat House Ruins‘. The article while interesting to read, seems to have continued the string of citing what I believe has been well-meant, but not sufficiently researched background information. I’ve seen several of the same errors, e.g., the 100′-long Jekyl Island — she was 84–long — in different media forms regarding how the club member’s large yachts were managed, the evolution of the club wharf and in particular the subject article regarding the location of the last, largest of the club’s boathouses and, yes… boathouse is technically a compound word.
Capt. James A. Clark & Staffing the Club Yacht, Cruiser, Launch & Napthia
The key to the success of the Club Era was the safe, efficient and courteous standards set by the club’s senior captain, James Agnew Clark who was one of the first hires by the club’s executive board along with Ernest Grobb — pronounced ‘grōbe’ — as the hotel clerk.
Capt. Clark2was born and raised in nearby St. Marys, Georgia, learned to master watercraft in and around Brunswick and the nearby barrier islands, and would have been nearing his 27th birthday on 14 December in the fall of 1887 before the club opened in 1888. Capt. Clark became immediate and lifelong friends with Grobb who would have been 26-years old in the late fall of 1887 when Grobb first arrived on the island. Grobb quickly became the Jekyll Island Club’s Superintendent during its second season, a position he held for 41-years and he and Clark remained loyal and treasured club staff — treated more like family than merely employees — until they both retired in 1930.
Note 2a: While there a few very good photos of Grobb, there are very few of Capt. Clark where he or his face are clearly visible. However, the exception is the one above where he’s not wearing a hat that partially covers his face, likely in his late 30’s after moving into the Brown Cottage on Jekyll Island as the live-in caretaker of the otherwise unoccupied cottage. It was in this same period during the 1893-1894 Yellow Fever epidemic he helped care for the sick who lived on the island while still protecting the interests of the club.
Note 2b: Although never identified in any books where this photo appears, I would guess that behind him is his future wife, the club’s head housekeeper Minnie Schuppan, two-years his junior whom he married on 20 November 1900, in Asbury Park City, Monmouth, New Jersey. Next to her might be Clark’s mother in her late 60’s, noting his father passed in 1871 and his only other brother passed in 1872 at 9-years of age and his three sisters were all married by the 1890’s. Again, I’m just guessing, but I suspect both Clark and Shuppen shared the three-bedroom Brown Cottage and his mother filled the role of a live-in chaperone before they were married. Clark and Schuppan would go on to have a son and a daughter, lived on Jekyll Island year-round .
Note 2c: Clark fulfilled the role as the island caretaker during the off-season and eventually a house of their own was built to the north of the DuBignon Cottage behind the clubhouse Annex in 1901 where they lived until their retirements, moving to nearby Brunswick, Georgia where he passed in March 1940, with Minnie passing in May 1949. The Clark Cottage was lost to a fire during the State Era on 9 February 1950.
In addition to Capt. Clark, in a typical Club Era season they would also hire two additional boat captains, a boat engineer, two deckhands, a dockman, and a fireman… who tended to feeding the steam boilers on the steam yachts. In 1916, a small cottage on Pier Street was built for long-time boat engineer John Courier and his family who came on when the club first opened — and is still called the boat engineer’s house — that they occupied until he left his position at the club at the end of the 1921 season. It was occupied next by Henry Etter, the club bookkeeper who took Ernest Grobb’s position in the 1889 season, from 1923-1926. The former assistant boat engineer brought in during the 1920’s, James Harper, became the sole boat engineer beginning in the 1930 season. Following Capt. Clark’s retirement, there were several different yacht, cruiser and launch captains including A.J. Spaulding who helmed the Jekyl Island and Dick Backus who captained the Sylvia.
The Club’s Yachts, Cruisers Launches, Napthia Craft and Barges
It was in 1887 — during construction of the clubhouse — when the first Jekyll Island Club-owned yacht was was purchased. It was be named the Howland in honor of then current club President, Henry E. Howland. It was also in these early years of the club when the steam launch Hattie was acquired, as well as the first, smaller 24-foot naptha launch. These three club boats served the clubs needs until the turn of the century, and all three survived the the strongest storm to ever hit Georgia, the Hurricane of 1898.
The storm made landfall on 2 October 1898 at Cumberland Island with sustained winds of 135 mph, creating a 16-foot storm surge along the barrier islands eastern shores and leaving Jekyll Island as well as Brunswick under up to four-feet of standing water. At least 179 people died in the hurricane — four at Brunswick, but none on Jekyll Island — and the storm’s effects were felt as far south as Jacksonville. Fernandina Beach was devastated, nearby Amelia Island was leveled and as far north as Savannah 97 people drowned on a plantation. On Jekyll, the recently completed first golf course near the current airport between Riverview and Old Plantation roads was ruined, the wharf and dock were damaged, the windmill was blown-down and nearly every building sustained some level of damage. There was extensive damage to landscape and an orchard on David King’s lot, as well as his cottage that would plague it for years after it was acquired by Edwin Gould who gave it the name Chicota. However, nothing as severe as elsewhere along the barrier islands given the ‘historic district’ was on the leeward side of the island and somewhat protected by the dunes and older-growth tidal forests.
Note 3: Capt. James Clark was “buffeted about and knocked-down” while securing the Howland and Hattie at the dock, and while the naptha launch was swamped, it was recovered and repaired.
The 1887-vintage Howland was sold and replaced in 1901 by the larger 84-foot, 64-ton Jekyl Island yacht built in 1896 which remained in service at the club until it was closed in 1942. The steam launch Hattie was replaced in the late 1890’s by the steam launch Kitty — named after club president Charles Lanier’s niece — that was replaced in the late 1910’s by the gasoline-engine powered and faster Sylvia and another launch named the Kermath. In the mid-1930’s a twin-gasoline engine cruiser named the Sydney — whose namesake like the Sylvia and Kermath’s I did not discover — was acquired in addition to the Kermath and the Sylvia, noting the latterburned to the waterline in 1942.
The Jekyll Island Wharf and the other docks and Boathouses along Jekyll Creek
The history behind the various boat landings and boathouses along Jekyll Creek is best told in pictures, which I’ve attempted to do below by stitching together various photographs taken over time along with both a portion of Clermont Huger Lee’s 1968 Preliminary landscape restoration plan for the Historic District, and a corresponding, current satellite image of the same area along the eastern shore of Jekyll Island at Jekyll Creek.
However, as a top-level timeline, the Jekyll Island pier and landing wharf inherited when the club acquired the island from John DuBignon quickly proved inadequate when construction of the clubhouse was underway in 1896 and 1897. As noted at the beginning of this section, the fixed pier and wharf had to be redesigned and rebuilt under the oversight of the clubhouse architect, Charles Alexander in 1887.
The resulting pier and wharf with it’s floating dock was utilitarian-looking vs. being finished in the more ornate victorian style used for the clubhouse. However, it provided structurally-sound and functionally sufficient to remain unchanged until 1916. Well, I say unchanged, the wharf and dock were damaged in the Hurricane of October 1898 and had to be repaired, but appears to have remained visually no different from the original 1887 design by Alexander.
As can be seen in the below photo at the upper left, by the time the first club steam yacht Howland was sold and replaced in 1901 by the 1896-built, 84-foot, 64-ton steam yacht Jekyl Island, the wharf and pier looked very much the same as it had before. However, by the early 1900’s a so-called boathouse — highlighted by the white arrows in the three other photos — had been built just south of the Jekyll Wharf at the south end of the Riverview Drive loop, just to the northwest of the McKay / Rockefeller’s Indian Mound Cottage. I say ‘so-called’ in that it did not appear to have the needed slipway or sit above the water such that it could have been used to house large, heavy craft that couldn’t be moved by animal-drawn carts.
I’ve not definitively discovered if the boathouse was built and owned by the club, or by Rockefeller who acquired the McKay Cottage in 1905 as it is referred to as both the club boathouse and as the Rockefeller boathouse in various mentions in books about Jekyll Island. The reference to Rockefeller’s boathouse came in regard to when he funded the construction of the $35,000 $1,013,600 in 2023 $’s bulkhead and seawall during the off-season summer of 1916 along the Jekyll Creek in front of his ‘Indian Mound‘ cottage — so named for the first time in February 1914 — that ran north to where the Edwin Gould ‘compound’ comprised of several lots he’d acquired from other club members began.
It’s noteworthy that after acquiring his Chicota cottage from David King in December 1900, Edwin Gould had his own, small landing wharf built in 1901 that was even longer than the club’s wharf with a small boathouse at the dock-end, and shown in the photos below.
Getting back to the construction of the seawall in 1916, the club’s boathouse had to be relocated further south along the shoreline and sat just just to the southeast of the former Pulitzer Cottage, acquired by John Albright in February 1914. The relocated club boathouse can be seen three-tenths of a mile south of the Jekyll Pier during the construction of the seawall, where the sunlight is reflected off its roof in the middle photo, below.
The ruins of the larger, ~100-foot long boathouse — several concrete piers and a windlass and capstan winch pulley wheel — can be found four-tenths of a mile south of the Jekyll Pier at the southwest corner of Riverview Park. Bear-in-mind, the surviving concrete piers were likely the foundation for the inclined slipway ramp, half-of-which was inside the boat house. Riding on the slipway would have been a massive cradle driven by a steam or electric powered windlass & capstan winch used to haul the 84-foot long, 64-ton Jekyl Island out of the water and into the boathouse.
My Attempt at Lifting the Fog Around the Jekyll Island Club’s Boathouse & Historic Site
I created the following, composite image to explain why I believe the boathouse shown in these two photos — the upper right, same image as from above — and a panoramic photo likely taken from a boat sitting just off the north end of the boathouse at it’s location just south of the Albright Cottage such that it would not block views of the Jekyll Creek from any of the club member cottages. The west-face of the Albright Cottage can be made-out to the east of the boathouse in this panoramic photo.
Black Frame: The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Note that a barge, likely the club-owned barge towed by the Jekyl Island is tied up to a small wharf on the north side of the boathouse that appears to have lampposts and two people on it.
The extent of the small wharf alongside the boathouse that extends out to the Jekyll Creek suggests that this one was truly a boathouse, likely with a rail system that allowed it to draw the smaller launches inside during the off-season.
Green Frame: The Albright Cottage ‘peeking through the trees’ and a standalone full image.
Orange Frame: The Jekyll Island Club’s iconic tower off in the distance
White Frame: What I suspect is a storage shed located south of the seawall and bulkhead that was present when the seawall was under construction and razed afterwards.
Going one step further, I’ve overlayed and annotated portion of Clermont Huger Lee’s 1968 Preliminary landscape restoration plan mentioned above with a current satellite image of the same area, noting Lee’s plan ended at the southwest corner of the historic district. The site of the club boathouse ruins is a 10th of a mile further south from there, or 0.07 tenths beyond where Lee’s 1968 map ends, just beyond the mouth of the tidal creek / canal at the threeway intersection of Riverview Drive and Stable Road. As before, I have annotated by composite map & satellite image infographic:
Dk. Green Frame: The Gould Wharf
Blue Frame: The Jekyll Island Club Wharf
Yellow Frame: Original location of the club / Rockefeller boathouse
Gold Frame:The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Lt. Green Frame: Location of the larger, ~100′-long club boat house, likely built for off-season storage or maintenance of the clubs’ Jekyl Island steam yacht.
For even some additional added context on what would have been a very large boat house, I’ve created two additional composites: the first is some photos of the Jekyll Island Club’s Boathouse ruins by Mike Stroud from a previous 31•81 article which do a great job of capturing where the piers and tabby-foundation around the remains of the windlass & capstan winch used to pull the 84-foot long, 64-ton Jekyl Island out of the water in its railway track-mounted boathouse cradle into the boathouse. The second are examples of Club Era Period windlass and capstan pulley systems so what’s leff standing at the Club Era’s last and largest boathouse can be put in better context.
Again, it’s only a supposition, but I don’t believe the concrete pilings were poured to handle the weight of the boathouse and were instead used to support the slipway rail system that the cradle rode on as the windlass & capstan winch hauled the Jekyl Island yacht out of the water.
Examples Club Era Period Windlass and Capstan Pulley Systems
Again, I’m somewhat surprised there are no scenic photographs, never mind more detailed photographs of the Jekyll Island Clubs’ boathouses over the years, or even boathouse operations, i.e., pulling the Jekyl Island out of the Jekyll Creek with guides alongside on the wharf’s walkway that surely existed on the last of the boathouses, as it did on the boathouse that was relocated just beyond the Albright Cottage in 1916.
That said, and lacking those pictures of the actual Jekyll Island Club boathouse, I decided to create one additional composite image of the very large, recently restored 180-foot long, 22-foot wide American Boathouse in Camden, Maine, that was built in 1904 for the 130-foot long sailing yacht of Chauncey Boreland, the first commodore of the Camden Yacht Club. It should be on par with what was still being built as boathouses in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as the technology — the use of steam or electric motor driven windlass and capstan pull-driven systems — would have been about the same. As before, I have annotated by composite map & satellite image infographic:
Gold Frame:The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Lt. Green Frame: Location of the larger, 100′-long club boat house, likely built for the Jekyl Island club steam yacht.
White Dashed Line: The likely outline of the actual boathouse needed to house the 84-foot long, 64-ton Jekyl Island yacht.
Blue Short-Dashed Line: the likely outline of the rail track system on which the saddle that the Jekyl Island sat as it was pulled into the boathouse by the Windlass winch system.
Orange Dotted Line: The likely outline of the pedestrian wharf platform used by crew members supporting the docking and winching-in of the Jekyl Island to the boathouse.
The Jekyll Island Club Opens to its Members & Guests
It’s important to note, while the executive committee early-on had established several different committees headed-up by the founders, it was Newton Finney who voluntarily resigned from the executive committee on 6 December 1886 to assume the position of secretary, at which point the committee resolved to provide Finney with $2,500 ~$81,858 in 2023 $’s ‘fair compensation’ noting he had voluntarily given-up a $2,000 ~$66,845 in 2023 $’s commission for his work in establishing the Club, recruiting the founding members as well as transferring ownership of the island to the Club and other ‘unremitting services during the past year,’ quoting fellow-founder and partner Oliver K. King from the 6 December executive committee meeting. Finney would continue to put in tireless hours throughout 1887 to ensure the successful establishment of the Club’s infrastructure, fully-furnished buildings and grounds, and acquiring a steam launch and wharf as needed to successfully open the club while also resolving issues and keeping Club members apprised of the progress.
The Club officially opened its doors when the executive committee arrived for the 1888 season on 21 January. It was a stunning success in many respects that lasted for the next forty years, a paradise for the affluent and membership was a cherished prize.
While there was much to praise about the overall experience, the Club was not without its issues.Major Richard L. Ogden who helped to co-found the Club and initially occupied the position of secretary prior to Finney, took on the duties as Superintendent at 66-years of age for the inaugural season at a salary of $2,500 / year ~$81,858 in 2023 $’s with room and board. As superintendent Ogden oversaw grading roads, draining ponds, stocking the island with quail and pheasants, constructing buildings, planting crops and the removal of wild stallions and an overpopulation of wild hogs. (In 1899, a professional hunter was employed to deplete their numbers, and an open season was given to members).
For Ogden, the compensation would cover the expense of his time spent at Jekyll. It is likely the once highly successful businessman and renown yachtsman from San Francisco was in need of an income stream, having recently fallen on lean times. Ogden saw his railcar company, Kimball Manufacturing — at one time the largest firm in San Francisco –– pushed into bankruptcy with the failure of the Bank of California in 1875 consuming much of his fortune.
Despite all of his experience and aptitude, the first year of the Club’s operation was a challenge, from trying to rid the island of wild boars, cattle and horses, to securing staff for the hotel and dealing with never-ended ‘suggestions’ from his well-heeled guests that ultimately caused him to tender his resignation after the first season. HIs successor only served for the 1889 season during a year Finney had erroneously predicted would yield a packed house and substantial profit. Point in fact, the Club failed to generate a profit during 8 of its first 10-years of operation, even when Ernest Grob became Club Superintendent for its third season — in addition to his duties as the hotel manager — a position he held until his retirement in 1930 at the age of 69.
During January, more than 200 members, guests and staff crowded the clubhouse with expectations of boating, driving, hunting, and yachting. One hundred and fifty feet of beach awaited them at high tide, and on the other side of the island … the Marshes of Glynn with their mysterious Spanish moss. It was noted, Mr. and Mrs. William Rockefeller arrived on 2 March and the Vanderbilt’s arrived fashionably late aboard their yacht, the Alva, when it anchored off the north end of the island. Source
Most members traveled by private train car and would often spend their first evening after arriving in Brunswick at the Oglethorpe Hotel, built around the same time as the Jekyll Island Club hotel and in the same style of architecture. The members would then be ferried to the Jekyll Island Club Wharf by the Club’s private launch, the Howland through 1901 and the the Jekyll Island, under the command of Captain James Clark.
The Appeal of Georgia’s Barrier Islands
Other members of the financial elite who came to Jekyll Island were William Rockefeller, the Astors, Armours, Cranes, Goodyears, Macys, Biddles, and the Goulds. As a matter of interest, the appeal of Georgia’s Barrier Islands was what caused Thomas Carnegie to buy the nearby Cumberland Island in 1884, and Hudson automobile co-founder Howard Coffin to buy Sapelo Island in 1922. He subsequently sold it to the R.J. Reynolds family in 1934, and then founded the Sea Island Company on Sea Island in 1926, with its highly successful Cloisters. St Catherine’s Island was acquired by ABC network founder, first federal Civil Aeronautics Authority chairman and candy industrialist, Edward Noble in 1943.
Inside the clubhouse members found elegance and simplicity. The lobby was dominated by a large inviting fireplace with a hunting motif. There was room used to sit, read and just relax with its large picture windows. In addition, there was a large inviting dining room available.
Earnest Grob & Henry Hyde, Keys to the Club’s Early Success
I’ve elected to make mention in this section about Ernest Grob and Henry Hyde, as I firmly believe they had a great deal to do with creating the atmosphere at the Jekyll Island Club that made it so beloved by the founding and early-years club members.
Ernest Grob’s soft touch and approach to managing the Club hotel and knowing what the members would expect was based on his time spent managing the quintessential ‘Gilded Age’ summer resort, the Malvern in Bar Harbor, Maine during the summer and from where he acquired many of the staff that came to the Jekyll Island Club each winter.
Many of the great wooden hotels that anchored the Gilded Age summer resorts also had cottages rented for the season. Typical was the Malvern at Bar Harbor, not the largest or grandest, but definitely the most fashionable—and longest lived—of the resort’s hostelries, with a guest roster that included such as Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II and her sister-in-law Mrs. Twombly, to Lord & Lady Randolph Churchill to Nijinsky. Charles Dudley Warner, co-author with Mark Twain of “The Gilded Age”, wrote of the Malvern: “Bar Harbor has one of the most dainty and refined little hotels in the world–the Malvern. Any one can stay there who is worth two millions of dollars or can produce a certificate from the Recorder of New York that he is a direct descendant of Hendrick Hudson or Diedrich Knickerbocker”.
The Malvern and the rental cottages across the street were designed and built by DeGrasse Fox, a lawyer, developer, contractor, entrepreneur and amateur architect. A roster of the tenants of these cottages in the 50+ years of their existence, before they were destroyed in the 1947 Bar Harbor Fire was a Gilded Age Who’s Who. It was once considered that Bar Harbor was where to go either to prepare oneself for a Newport launch or, alternatively, to escape the rigors of Newport, consumed by it’s one-upmanship and haughty feeling.
The 25-year-old Swiss immigrant and committed bachelor named Ernest Gilbert Grob, pronounced ‘grōbe’ [b.1861, d.1945] was hired during the 1888 inaugural season of the Jekyll Island Club to manage the operation of the hotel, be the clerk and the bookkeeper. Grob’s aptitude and resourcefulness proved to be above expectations, and the executive committee showed their appreciation by raising his $125 monthly salary to $200 per month $6,479 in 2023 $’s plus room and board. This bonus successfully ensured his loyalty to the Club. Grob returned for a second year to run the Clubhouse operations and went on to hold the position for 41 years4.
Note 4: The book Splendid Isolation by Pamela Bauer Mueller published in 2009 as an ebook begins with Chapter One, something of a diary by Ernest Grobb that provides an account of the earliest days of the club.
Grob also had the important responsibility of hiring the seasonal staff to operate the Club during the season. Many of his employees came from northern resorts, such as the Malvern in Maine, which Grob managed during the summer as previously mentioned. Grob became a mainstay on the island and was highly respected by employees and Club members alike. He intentionally operated the Jekyll Island Club as a large country estate rather than a hotel, and this was the manner in which the members wanted to be treated while at their hunting club.
However, as he approached his late 60’s, coinciding with tumultuous years of the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, he finally decided to retire. The loss of Grob likely brought about further change to the club at a time when most of it’s founding members had passed and their heirs were living in a different world. Unlike their self-made parents where the solitude and remote, simple outdoors pleasures of Jekyll Island could be found, the born-into-wealth generation was more interested in and attracted to alternatives in other, newer resorts — on the east coast, west coast and elsewhere made more accessible by air-travel — catering to the faster-moving, see-and-be-seen movers and shakers in business and the recently launched Hollywood movie industry.
Although not in lock-step parallel with Ernest Grob, it was clearly the efforts and attention to detail that founding club member Henry Hyde brought to bear as ‘The Czar of Jekyl Island’ when he decided to spend the entirety of his winters at Jekyll Island instead of in Aiken, South Carolina, and devote his full time and attention to the Club beginning in 1895.
Henry Baldwin Hyde [b.1834, d.1899] had founded the Equitable Insurance company in 1859 and built it into the largest of its kind in the world. He went on to build the famous Equitable Life Assurance Building in 1870, the tallest building in the world at 9-stories after it’s 1885 expansion and first office building to have passenger elevators. Hyde was one of the original Club members and also had a fastidious attention to detail in everything he was involved with, including just as a member of the Club.
Hyde was also a close friend of Frederick Baker, Treasurer of the Club. Hyde was given the nickname as the Czar of Jekyll Island by his own son based on his efforts at the Club as it struggled to overcome being closed for the 1893-94 season due to an outbreak of Yellow Fever in Brunswick as well as the stock market crash of 1893. Through his relationship with Frederick Baker, Hyde had become fully-engaged as a shadow advisor to Baker, and later became a member of the executive committee, eventually being elected Secretary-Treasurer when he declined the role of President suggesting someone else occupy what he saw as a figure-head position.
Interestingly enough, it was Hyde who in 1895 hastened the end of Newton Finney’s role in the Jekyll Island Club and his membership when he noted the $5,000 $163,717 in 2023 $’s per year annual operating expense of the Club’s New York Office and Finney’s ‘sinecure’ $300/month $11,000 in 2023 $’s position that required little or no work, were a drag on the Clubs finances and could easily be eliminated. Finney did, in fact, subsequently sell his lots to Joseph Pulitzer in 1896 and ended his association with the Club that same year, as did John Eugene DuBignon.
In just the space of a few years, before falling into ill health and passing in 1899 at the age of 65, his legacy at the Jekyll Island Club includes the renovation of the Club hotel, becoming the driving force behind building of the San Souci apartments in 1896, as well as conceiving the idea for building the Club Hotel Annex, finished after he passed in 1891.
After the brief, failed experiment with a late November season start in 1889, the Club’s subsequent seasons would begin in late December season and run through mid-spring when families came down from northern homes in New York and elsewhere to relax and enjoy the warmer climate and recreational activities offered at the Club.
Post 1916 Seawall Construction and Relocation of Boathouse
But it was the outdoors that was the real enticement: hunting, fishing, swimming, bicycling, golf, tennis. Early-on, cycling and then tennis became all the rage and the first tennis court at Jekyll Island was built in 1903 by Frank Goodyear a year after he joined the Club 1902, just to the east of where he would have his cottage built that his family first occupied in 1906. Tennis proved so popular in the early 1900’s that two more outdoor clay-courts were installed just south of the Clubhouse in 1909, where the current croquet field is now located. In 1913, Edward Gould added an indoor tennis court with men’s and women’s locker-rooms on a second story over the courts along with restrooms and showers at a cost of $25,000 $818,121 in 2025 $’s that he allowed other members to use. In 1929, the Morgan Tennis Center with a single indoor court was built and first opened in 1930, named for then club president J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr, which also had several outdoor tennis courts to the east of the building, where the Pier Street Shopping and Morgan Conference Center parking lots are now located.
There was also yachting. Over the 40-years leading up to the stock market crash of 1929, and the beginning of the end of the Jekyll Island Club, J P Morgan and his son J.P. Morgan, Jr.[who went by the name Jack Morgan] would anchor their steam yachts Corsair I & II north of the island given their size and draft. The same was true for William Vanderbilt with his steam yachts lvah and Valiant and Joseph Pulitzer’s steam yacht Liberty when they came to winter on the island, By the early 1900’s it was an unofficial contest to see which man came with the newest and sleekest yacht: everything was a competition at Jekyll given the nature of the members and their personal drive for ‘winning.’
J.P. Morgan’s Corsair IIVanderbilt’s AlvahPulitzer’s Liberty
Other Club members also owned lavish yachts they’d use to travel to Jekyll: Pierre Lorillard’s Caimen, James Stillman’s Wanda, Astors’ Nourmahal, Manville’s Hi Esmaro, Jr., George F. Baker’s Viking, E. T. Stotesbury’s Castle, Cranes’ Illyria, Theodore N. Vail’s Speedwell and Northwind, Commodore Frederick Bourne’s Marjorie, and the Goulds’ Hildegards, Saono, and Ketchum. Andrew Carnegie, whose brother Thomas owned Cumberland Island, visited Jekyll on yachts, Skibo and Missoe.
In addition to the first seven cottages built and owned by Club members between 1888 and 1896, the 1884 DeBignon home that predated the Club’s formation could be used as an overflow guest house. Although originally designated as the superintendents house and offered in total to Ernest Grob as his personal residence, he declined all but one bedroom reminding the committee he was a committed bachelor.
In 1896, and as a result of Henry Hyde’s efforts, the Club built the San Souci apartments. Although called an apartment building, it was one of the first cooperative apartment buildings, aka., co-ops in the country featuring six, four-bedroom units with private baths, a parlor and porches overlooking the river.
Shortly after the tenth Club member-owned cottage was built in 1901, the clubhouse Annex with eight more apartments and an additional 20 guest rooms adjoined to the southwest corner of the clubhouse was added, bringing the total number of guest rooms at the clubhouse to eighty.
It’s noteworthy that in addition to securing commercial loans and mortgages as well as the purchase of the apartments in the San Souci and Annex to fund these types of projects, the operating costs of the Club were funded by the members annual dues, other assessments for Club improvements, many made personal loans to the Club. And, then there were on-going member costs associated with paying recurring subscriptions for the use of facilities like the new stables that were built in 1897 as well as many of the activities on the island, such as golf… when the first crude 9-hole golf course was established in 1898 where the airport now stands. Membership was indeed a privilege, but it was also a sizeable luxury expense for the members, many of whom owned the aforementioned yachts and other homes elsewhere in the United States.
The Jekyll Island Clubhouse Renovation & Expansion, 1896
The Curved-End of the Main Dining RoomBilliard Room to the Southeast of the Hotel
The activity on Jekyll Island following the end of the 1895-1896 season was a busy one with construction on-going throughout the rest of the year, much of it being driven by the industrious Henry Hyde. In addition to the relocation of the DuBignon home to make way for the construction of San Souci apartments (see below), the clubhouse saw the expansion of the dining room on the north end of the building with its long-forgotten curved-end wall, skylights and fireplace that was demolished in a subsequent expansion of the dining room in 1917,. There was also the addition of the standalone billiard room —now the hotel’s lobby — connected by covered porches as well as a larger a barber shop, additional restrooms, two additional stairways and a new fireplace.
The Sans Souci Apartments is a 3-story Queen Anne styled, shingle-covered building with six, four-room units designed by Charles A. Gifford, built in 1896 and occupied for the first time in 1897. And, while called apartments, the San Souci along with the 12-unit Rembrandt building in Manhattan is considered one of the earliest cooperative apartment buildings, aka., co-ops in the United States.
Sidebar 1: Co-Ops vs. Condominiums
While its often said the San Souci Apartments were one of the first condominiums in the U.S., it was actually one of the earliest “Co-Ops” built in the U.S., noting there’s something of a legal distinction between a Co-Op and a Condominium that gets lost in the fog of hyperbole.
The Club members were all ‘shareholders’ in the Jekyll Island Club, not owners outright and as members they were entitled to build and “own” homes on the island, to include the ‘multi-dwelling’ San Souci Apartments and, later, the eight apartments attached to the Jekyll Island Clubhouse Annex. The latter is why the San Souci Associates were formed to provide the structure behind their co-operative ‘ownership’ of the building, have voting rights associated with their stake in the building and collective responsible for the building and its maintenance costs.
The first ‘true’ condominium in the United States was established in Salt Lake, City Utah after Utah became the first state to pass a condominium statute in 1960, based on similar types of shared ownership of apartments in Europe and the Caribbean. It was a 120-unit ‘community’ of five new apartment buildings known as the Graystone Arms established in 1960.
The 1896 San Souci Apartments first occupied in January 1897 had been preceded by the massive 1881 121 Madison Avenue and Rembrandt buildings in Manhattan, two of the earliest cooperative apartment buildings, aka., co-ops that were modelled after the successful, so-called “French Flat” apartments that appeared in Paris before the 1870’s. The Rembrandt in particular is also often mis-identified as one of the first condominiums.
Other early Co-Ops included the 1883 34 Gramercy Park and the 1884 Chelsea Hotel. While all of these were massive buildings, the Co-Op legal model of “cooperative hotel ownership” was essentially the same and many of the Club’s members who were from New York would have been familiar with the new Co-Op business model used for the massive apartment buildings, but adapted it for their modest but luxurious six and eight San Souci and Annex Apartments.
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Architect Charles A. Gifford worked with the New York City-based architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White — a well-regarded developer of Colonial Revival and Shingle styles of architecture — before opening his own firm. Gifford was best known as a designer of resort hotels, including Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire owned by Club member, Joseph Stickney and Clifton Hall in Niagara Falls, New York. He also designed the New Jersey State buildings for the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Between 1896 and 1900, Gifford was commissioned to design five buildings for the Club and its members: the San Souci apartments in 1896, the Jekyll Island Club’s stables in 1897, Joseph Pulitzer’s cottage in 1897, Henry Porter’s Mistletoe cottage in 1899 and the clubhouse annex in 1901 as well as later designing the the Glynn County Courthouse in a Beaux Arts style in 1906
It was built at a time when despite the reasonable clubhouse room rates of $6.00 $219 in 2023 $’s per day, accommodations were provided on a first-come basis and specific rooms could not reserved for ‘guests’ of members. Also by this time, seven of the fifteen privately-owned Club member ‘cottages’ had already been built on lots in what is now the Historic District to afford members guaranteed accommodations for their ‘guests’ in the same, familiar and personalized vacation homes sized to meet their families and vacation home needs.
However, Club members without large or with grown families who did not plan to spend the entire season at the Club, needed nor wanted to deal with the upkeep of another home or compounding seasonal per-day costs to ‘rent’ a space, preferred to have an apartment they could own and even sub-let when it wasn’t in use.
Although it is possible William Rockefeller suggested the idea in early 1896 of building what was eventually named the San Souci — French for ‘‘carefree’ — Henry Hyde was the driving force behind its creation. Hyde selected the site on 21 June 1896 and by 27 July had secured five members to buy units to include himself, William Rockefeller, Joseph Stickney, William P. Anderson, and James A. Scrymser. The initial sixth prospective owner — either Briggs Cunningham or William Proctor — backed-out, and Apartment No.6 remained ownerless in the 1886 season when, after the club closed, it was in July 1897 when J.P. Morgan became the sixth initial member of the Jekyll Island Associates. The latter underscores that J.P. Morgan neither developed the concept nor funded and built the San Souci, as is suggested by urban legends.
Today, the Sans Souci is a twenty-four-room extension of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel operated by the Jekyll Island Club Resort, and still retains original features such as leaded glass windows, a winding oak staircase, and the octagonal skylight above it. And, I’ll note that we stayed the southeast suite of J.P. Morgan’s Apartment No. 6 for our honeymoon back in July 1993 and it was immense, as was the Jacuzzi bathtub which was clearly not original to the apartment.
Henry Hyde first considered having a multi-storied annex with private apartments and additional guest rooms added to the clubhouse in 1895, but it took a backseat to the more imperative clubhouse renovation as well as the construction of the San Souci. It was in 1897 when Hyde took up the idea and once again engaged New York architect Charles Gifford to develop a design and building plans, who at that time was overseeing the development of the new Club stables. Complicating matters by this time were space constraints associated with structures added after the club house was built, namely the Fairbanks Cottage to the southeast whose view of Jekyll Creek and the marshes could be obstructed by the new annex based on the original proposed design and location of the annex.
When approached by the Club regarding the desire to encroach on his lot, Fairbanks suggested the annex be built at an oblique angle extending from the recently added billiard room to the southeast, so neither his view of the Jekyll River and marshes nor those of the Annex apartments would be unacceptably obstructed. Fairbank’s proposal was ultimately agreed upon and construction began by August 1901 after Hyde was no longer involved in the decision, such that the new annex would be finished by the 1902 season.
As originally conceived by Hyde, the Annex would be yet another cooperative apartment building like the San Souci with two floors each with three four-bedroom units, a private bath and enclosed parlor rooms with river views. However, the level of interest in the expansion compelled the Club’s executive committee to build two floors of four four-bedroom units, with a third floor having 20 new guest rooms and servants quarters on on the fourth, attic level floor at a cost somewhat higher than the original $60,000 $2,193,000 in 2023 $’s estimate.
The club members who purchased the eight apartments were then current Club president Charles Lanier — a cousin and friend of poet Sidney Lanier who famously wrote the Marshes of Glynn and for whom the beautiful, while cable-stayed bridge that spans the Brunswick River in Brunswick, Georgia, visible from the east side of Jekyll Island is named — Cornelius Bliss — a highly successful and politically active New York Merchant and former Secretary of the Interior — Edmund Hayes — an engineer, businessman and philanthropistwho was a pioneering investor the development of electrical power from Niagara Falls whose company installed the the Steel Arch Bridge over the Niagara River and built the first power plant on the Canadian side of the river — John S. Kennedy — a Scottish-born coal & iron magnate, businessman, philanthropist and partner of Morris K. Jesup in the railroad and later banking firm of M.K. Jesup & Company — Morris K. Jesup — an American banker, philanthropist and the president of the American Museum of Natural History — Francis Bartlett — a lawyer who inherited a substantial fortune from his father, a prominent attorney, a real estate investor, and a director and philanthropist to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts — John J. Albright — a businessman who made a fortune in coal, hydroelectric power and Westinghouse Electric and philanthropist who would go on to buy the Pulitzer cottage in 1914 — and Samuel Spencer5— one of the few southerners to belong to the Club who was a civil engineer, businessman, and railroad executive and eventually became president of six railroads, a director of at least ten railroads and several banks and other companies.
Note 5: Mr. Spencer was killed four-years later along with nine others in an aberrant 1906 train wreck in Lawyers, Virginia. His private coach was the rear-most car on a Southern Railway train that had stopped on the tracks during the night to make a repair as all the guests were sleeping. Mr. Spencer’s coach and train were rear-ended by another Western and Southern Railway passenger train that dispatchers and flagmen had failed to warn about the stopped train ahead.
Indoor Plumbing: While indoor plumbing to a small number of bathrooms via gravity fed via cisterns located in the attics was incorporated into all but the first cottage — the Brown Cottage built in 1888 — the Club hotel only had limited and shared bathrooms with running water. Over time, as renovations were made and additions were built, additional indoor plumbing for toilet rooms and baths were added and originally fed by a very large, attic-mounted cistern. However, when they realized the weight of the filled cistern was exceeding the capacity of the hotel’s upper floors, in1891, they erected a water tower and windmill which served as a low-tech pump to replace the cistern: it too proved problematic over the years being damaged or destroyed by passing hurricane winds more than once. However, the San Souci was not designed with indoor plumbing as it was assumed the readily available number of servants to attend to take-care of providing water pitchers and emptying chamber pots in the late 1800’s was sufficient and subsequently added in 1901.
Electricity: When first built, even though nearby Brunswick, Georgia had been ‘electrified‘ in the late 1870’s, there were no provisions for electricity generation on the island, with most cooking being done with wood-fired stoves in the hotel kitchen for cooking, noting only two of the cottages had been built with their own kitchens: the Brown Cottage given its remote distance from the clubhouse, and Hollybourne as the Maurice family would arrive before Christmas when the Club’s kitchen staff had not yet arrived for the season. Water for bathing was heated by coat-fired boilers and lighting was provided by candlelight or oil lamps and other fixtures.
However, the addition of an electric power generator or ‘dynamo’ had been anticipated when the Clubhouse and Annex, as well as the San Souci apartments and the Baker, Struthers5a, and Pulitzer cottages were built and all of them had been wired for electricity. It wasn’t until December 1902 that the $39,000 electric power generation plant with its dynamo was built such that the pre-wired buildings and cottages were electrified for the first time during the 1903 season when the club opened on 11 January.
Note 5a: William Struther, Jr’s. “Moss Cottage” was actually the first home built and wired for electricity in 1896 and is believe to have also had it’s own power generator at the home as it was never fitted with gas lights. It would be until seven years later when the other pre-wired cottages would be served by the Jekyll Island Club’s dynamo / electric power generator — now home to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center — after it was completed in December 1902, just ahead of the 1903 club season when it opened on 11 January 1903.
The First Automobile: It’s important to keep in mind that for the most part, Jekyll Island was inaccessible by land through the Club Era and built without the benefit of large powered equipment by hand and with animal-power, using ramps, scaffolding and pully systems to lift heavier items like cisterns, boilers, etc. Moreover, all the materials, men, animals and equipment needed for construction had to be brought-over via ferry or barge from Brunswick, Georgia, other than materials that could be produced from natural resources on the island.
The first auto that was brought to the island was done so by William Struthers who as noted above, was also the first Club member to build a pre-wired and electrified house on the Island. In fact, his Moss Cottage built in 1896 was not only the first wired for electricity, it was the first not plumbed for gas fixtures. When he and his family arrived for the 1900-1901 season in late December he unexpectedly brought along a gasoline-powered car whose exhaust smoke and engine noise were not well received. In response to complaints, executive committee requested Struthers remove it from the island which, begrudgingly he did. By the 1901-1902 season, the Club would now allow automobiles on the island, but operated following strict rules; automobiles:
were only allowed on the beaches, via Wylle or Shell Road and the connecting roads to and from the stables,
could only drive a maximum speed of six-miles per hour,
would come to a stop when meeting a horse drawn carriage or with a rider, and
would only be operated between 10 am and 12 pm, and 2 pm to 7 pm.
As the wealthy families began to overflow the clubhouse, they built winter homes of their own as each member who had two shares was able to lease a plot of land on which to build a private residence called a ‘cottage.’
In reality, the cottages were all large but generally humble residences designed to house the large families and staff of the wealthiest club members. “Cottages” were not unique to Jekyll Island and were likely so-named as many of the Club’s members also had built grand vacation mansions at Newport, Rhode Island earlier in the Gilded Age of the 1880’s were also referred to by their owners as cottages.
When landscape architect Horace Cleveland developed the masterplan for the layout of the Club grounds, this was anticipated and he included fifty lots of land: one lot per each pair of $600 shares allocated for the Club members. Note that by 1910, the cost of a share had risen to $2,000 $64,797 in 2023 $’s.
Between 1887 and 1928, a total of 15 member-owned cottages were built, some of which were designed and built by leading architects such as Hastings and Carriers, David Adler, and John Russell Pope. Of the 15 built, 10 remain, one of which — the Furness Cottage — was re-purposed in 1898 as a servants quarters and then late, in 1932 as the Club infirmary and has since served in various other capacities. The Brown, Fairbank, Chichota and Pulitzer cottages were razed and Solterra was destroyed by fire.
The following layout of the Club is purportedly based on a March 1930 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company survey map that I’ve been unable to locate. However, as depicted, it appears quite similar to the July 1920 Sanborn map I used instead. I imposed a color-coded legend to the buildings used for housing, with the Club member cottages that are still standing in blue, the four that have either been destroyed or repurposed in grey, Club member and guest housing in yellow and Club staff housing in red.
The five cottages lost to time include:
The Brown Cottage built in 1888, conveyed to the Club in 1926 and razed in the mid-1940s.
The Solterra Cottage built in 1890, destroyed by fire in 1914.
The Fairbanks Cottage built in 1890, conveyed to the Club and razed in 1944
The Chicota Cottage built in 1897, then vacant from 1933, conveyed to the Club in 1936 and razed in 1942.
1898 Pulitzer / Aldrich / Cottage was conveyed to the Club in 1934 then damaged by fire and razed in 1951 as the JIA decided it was not cost effective to repair.
A Chronological Overview of the Club Member Cottages
What follows are photo galleries and brief histories for each of the 15 cottages, much of which comes from various items I discovered during my on-line searches of the Internet and, of course, June McCash’s wonderful book, “The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony” as well as her earlier book, “The Jekyll Island Club.”
1888 – Brown Cottage
An Approximation, Based on Brick Remains from Basement Kitchen / Dining Room Fireplace Foundation, which also Aligns Front Porch to Optimum View of Sunsets on the Marshes of Glynn
Lot 71, acquired from Newton Finney in 1888 – North Riverview Drive, 31.0689°N 81.42598°W: A Queen Anne Revival home designed by William Burnet Tuthill for McEvers Bayard Brown [b.1852, d.1926], a New York banker who became a recluse and left the country after commissioning the construction of the cottage, having never lived-in nor seeing the finished cottage during the remaining 37-years of his life that he spent living outside the United States.
It was the first cottage built at Jekyll and had a full kitchen in the basement for the 35-year-old millionaire at what most other members saw as an inhospitable distance from the Club and facing west, overlooking the marshes of Glynn. He erected a bridge to reach the isolated house, stables for his horses, and furnished the cottage elegantly.
The eccentric millionaire subsequently came to be known as ´The Hermit of the Essex Coast´ in England, where he went after leaving the U.S.in 1888 on his steam yacht Valfreyia, and lived the rest of his life anchored on his yacht in Essex. He authorized Club employees to use the house — such as Captain James Clark who lived there briefly with his mother and sister until 1901, and then by the Club’s steam engineer John F. Courier and his family through 1920 –– and continued to remain a Club member in good standing through his death in 1926, at which point ownership of the cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club.
The house deteriorated and was razed in the mid-1940s; all that remains are portions of the parlor fireplace foundation hidden behind a Live Oak tree just outside the fence at the southeast end of the airport.. When accessed for property taxes in 1889 it was listed as 10,000 $323,200 in 2023 $’s but steadily decreased in value to $4,000 $135,291 in 2023 $’s by 1892 where it would remain.
Lot 15, acquired from his stockbroker E.K. Willard upon his resignation from the Club in 1888 – 371 Riverview Drive, 31° 3.518′ N, 81° 25.298′: From the marker – When Chicago manufacturer & Philanthropist Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank [b.1829, d.1903] purchased lot 15 in 1889 at the age of 61, he enjoyed the simplicity of the island and “thrived on the sociability of the place.” Once considered “the most convenient and desirable site on the island,” it was the closest to the Clubhouse. His cottage was a fairly modest home with six bedrooms, two baths, a great hall, library, and kitchen.
While his wife Helen was not as fond of Jekyll as her husband, who served as the Club’s Vice President from the 1888-1889 season until his death in 1903, she came to the Island with him until 1893-1894 season, when an outbreak of Yellow Fever in Brunswick caused the Club to remain closed. Fairbank came by himself for the 1894-1895 season. After returning home in the Spring, Helen became ill with appendicitis and in June died from peritonitis. Fairbank had a paralyzing stroke after the 1901-1902 season and died a year later in March 1903.
It was throughout this same period of time when Henry Hyde had wanted to build an addition to the Club’s hotel with six apartments. However, due to an impasse with Fairbanks on the placement of the addition, it was set-aside for a stand alone structure instead: the San Souci apartment building erected in 1896 and first occupied in 1897. With that project complete, the design of what would become the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s Annex came to the fore and pitted Hyde’s preferred placement to the south of the hotel against Fairbank’s right to enjoy the view of the Jekyll River and marshes from his home, which the Annex would partially block. It was only after Hyde passed in 1899 that Fairbank’s suggestion to build the Annex at an oblique angle towards the southwest was adopted.
Club member Walton Ferguson purchased the cottage from Fairbank’s heirs in 1904, having rented it for the previous season. Fifteen years later he sold it to Club member Ralph B. Strassburger in 1919, who was married to Club member and eventually president Frederick Bourne’s daughter, May. However, Straussbuurger put it on the market after only one season and eventually sold it to his wife’s sister, Marjorie May Bourne in 1923, who rarely used it. The cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Cluband razed in 1944. However, a brick outline of the cottage was added to the lawn area and main drive by the JIA to represent where the Fairbank Cottage was located.
Walton FergusonRalph B. StrassburgerMarjorie May Bourne
101 Old Plantation Road, 31.056667°N 81.419611°W: The Infirmary-Furness Cottage, aka. Walter Rogers Furness Cottage, a Victorian shingle style, 12-room, two-and-one-half story cottage designed for 28-year-old architect Walter Rogers Furness [b.1861, d.1914] by his uncle Frank Furness’ architecture firm. Walter Furness at 25-years-of-age was the youngest founding member of the Jekyll Island Club and wintered there until blinded in one eye while playing rackets in 1898. He subsequently let his membership lapse in 1901, having electing not to pay his annual dues or assessments after 1898.
1st Move – When built in 1890, the Furness Cottage stood alone at the southern end of the Club compound. 49-year-old Joseph Pulitzer purchased the cottage from Furness in 1896 and lived in the home through two winter seasons. However, it was during 1896 when William Struthers had his Moss Cottage built, inspiring Pulitzer to have a new, twenty-six-room villa built on his lot. To do so,he had to move the Furness Cottage some ~125-feet and after moving into the new cottage, used the Furness Cottage to house his servants.
2nd Move – The image at right shows the location of the Furness Cottage when the 1920’s Sanborn Survey Map was developed, some six-years after John A. Albright moved it the second time after buying the late John Pulitzer’s property with the two cottages in 1914, also using the Furness Cottage to house his servants after moving it 70-feet to the northeast.
3rd Move– Frank H. Goodyear built his cottage in 1906, and his son Frank Goodyear Jr. inherited the Goodyear Cottage and was elected to membership at the age of 25 in 1916. Goodyear Jr. went on to purchased the Furness Cottage from Albright in October 1929, intending to relocate it and donate it to the Club. It was on 21 January 1930, when it was moved northeast a quarter-mile to the corner of 101 Old Plantation at and Stable Roads, where it remains. Goodyear had renovated the cottage, equipped as an infirmary, and donated it to the Jekyll Island Club in memory of his mother who passed in 1915 and had made significant contributions to New York hospitals. The Josephine Goodyear Memorial Infirmary was in operation from 1930 to 1942, when the Jekyll Island Club was closed.
379 Riverview Drive, 31.0622°N 81.423°W: A Jacobethan or pseudo-Jacobean example of an eclectic Tudor style cottage popular from 1890 until 1940 designed by William H. Day was built for 50-year-old engineer and bridge builder Charles Stewart Maurice [b.1840, d.1924] of Athens, Pennsylvania.
Originally, this nine-bedroom living space (12,271 square feet) accommodated Maurice, his wife Charlotte, and their nine children. Maurice’s bridgebuilding experience factored into the cottage’s structural design: a steel support structure sat on 19 brick piers in the basement with a pair of wooden trusses in the attic that held long steel support rods tied to central cross members that held-up the second floor, distributing the weight of the home without any interior columns in the large and open living and dining rooms The cottage is also unique as it’s the only one of that era to be constructed with tabby: a concrete mixture of lime, sand, and crushed shells. The original cost to build was 19,100 $644,500 in 2023 $’s
While the Maurice family lived in the cottage, they would arrive in late November or early December before and often remain beyond the times when the Club’s kitchen and dining room had been staffed for the season, and they would host an annual Christmas dinner for the Club’s key staff and do special things for the children. Hollybourne became a gathering place for members of the Jekyll Island Club with frequent teas and dinner parties hosted by Charlotte Maurice. Charles and his wife Charlotte were also renown authorities on Jekyll Island’s history and wildlife.
The Jekyll Island Club Members Preserve the Horton House, “Old Tabby”
It is noteworthy that in 1898, members of the Jekyll Island Club lead by Charles and Charlotte Maurice took it upon themselves to stabilize and partially restore the abandoned, remaining tabby shell of the Horton House which was subsequently the home of Christophe Poulain DuBignon who, as noted earlier, acquired fractional ownership of the island in 1790’s and took-up residence in the Horton House in 1794, acquiring full-ownership in 1800. Throughout the time the home remained in the DuBignon family it was also known as the DuBignon Plantation Home or DuBignon Mansion.
After his father Christophe Poulain DuBignon passed in 1825, DuBignon’s son, Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon, was the next member of the family to reside in the home attending to the plantation using enslaved labor from 1825 until likely leaving the island in 1852, which would coincide with the year on one of three gravestones found on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansiongrounds. The house and grounds were found in near ruin in 1862 when the island was occupied by Union Troops during the Civil War., the year prior to when Henri divided Jekyll Island ownership among his three remaining sons and one unmarried daughter.
The Restoration of the Horton House and Creation of the Dubignon Memorial Graveyard
By May of 1898, year using concrete, iron bracing rods on the chimney and adding-back brick-concrete wall sections with a concrete veneer, the Maurice lead group was able to restore the structure to the physical form it maintains to this day.
While the Jekyll Island Club’s volunteer and amateur preservationists were working on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion, they found three gravestones — also known as full grave ledgers — for three people associated with the DuBignon family: Joseph DuBignon, Ann Amelia DuBignon, and Marie Felicite Riffault.
The gravestones at one time in the past had been used to cover their graves sites on the grounds of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion, but over time had been disturbed and damaged or perhaps moved by either Confederate or Union Army troops who occupied the island during the Civil War, perhaps even animals left to go wild and other naturally-occurring changes in the landscape that separated the gravestones from the burial plots.
The Jekyll Island Club preservationists built a new, small memorial cemetery within sight distance of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion out of a low, stucco covered brick wall with a concrete veneer finish –– the same techniques they used as they restored the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion— wherein they placed the three gravestones.
The White marble gravestones were signed at the bottom with “Wm. T White, marble cutter Ch. So. Ca.”.
To help and preserve the gravestones, in addition to the walled and gated cemetery enclosure, they were placed on above ground, exposed brick ‘tombs‘ in a respectful manner and in the center of the memorial cemetery.
Note that in recent past, the gravestones and headstones were restored and cleaned to a high degree.
In 1912, two additional headstones were added to the cemetery, possibly more-or-less memorial markers for two Club employees who accidentally drowned in the Jekyll Creek on 21 March 1912.
Unfortunately, Charlotte died in 1909 of typhoid fever — Salmonella typhi bacterial infection which had been rampant throughout the latter part of the 1800’s and early 1900’s — contracted at Jekyll Island through eating oysters from beds that were too close to the Club’s sewage discharge into the Jekyll River. Charles and his family continued to visit Jekyll every season, with his daughters continuing to do so following Charles death in 1924.
His unwed daughters Marian and Margaret Maurice became members, inheriting the cottage in 1924, and enjoyed visiting every season until the Club closed in 1941, retaining their ownership of Hollybourne through 1947 when the state of Georgia acquired the entire island through the condemnation process. The daughters were so bitter over losing Hollybourne that they not only never returned to the Georgia coast, but also insisted on bypassing the entire state on their winter treks to Florida.
The cottage remained empty, fell into disrepair and was besieged by termites. It wasn’t until 1998 when the Jekyll Island Authority commissioned the Getty Conservation Institute to conduct studies of the house, which resulted in a climate control system to keep further damage at bay and fumigation to deal with a termite infestation. Preservation and restoration work continues to this day, as the cottage has served as a learning lab for preservation staffed with seasonal volunteers, interns, contractors, and preservationists. It is also used to host special events and weddings and in 2017 Charles and Charlotte Maurice’s great-great granddaughter Holly Maurice McClure and Joe Martin held their wedding at their families former winter home.
Lot 28 acquired from L.M. Lawson and another from Henry Hyde – 371 Riverview Drive, 31.06064°N 81.42298°W: A Queen Anne Revival style, 12-room shingled home featuring porches, turrets, and gazebo was built for 60-year-old New York businessman Frederic Baker [b.1830, d.1913]. It was the largest cottage built as of 1890 and considered one of the most desirable homes on the island, being host many notable guests, including President William McKinley in March 1899 to whom the Bakers offered Solterra while they traveled abroad.
Frederic Baker became a Club member in May 1888 before he had ever been to Jekyll Island. He and his wife Francis came for their first season on 1 January 1889 and immediately set-about to become fully-involved in the Club and build a cottage. Frederic was subsequently elected and served as the Jekyll Island Club’s treasurer for 20 years and, in that capacity by the middle 1890’s, he was essentially running the Club and making most of the important decision, never mind personally covering many Club deficits using his own funds.
It’s noteworthy he waited until late-in-life to get married, and at the age of 54 wedded Francis Steers Lake, the widow of businessman George Lake and in her 40’s with two adult daughters. The Bakers made Solterra Cottage the center of social life at the Jekyll Island Club, and were instrumental in having the Faith Chapel built in 1904. It replaced Union Chapel built earlier in 1897, that was relocated north to colored staff community known as Red Row for their use. It was also Frederic who became close friends with Henry Hyde who, as noted earlier, while only an active member of the Club for a few short years, between 1895 and his untimely death in 1899, helped to ease the burden on Frederic while also shaping the Club for its most successful years during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
A year after Frederic Baker died at the age of 83 in June 1913, a faulty flue was suspected as the cause of a fire that broke-out in the attic on 9 March 1914. Without access to a fire-house and pressurized water, many of the house servants and club employees assisted Mrs. Baker in removing what furniture and personal affects they could before the whole structure was engulfed in flames. The only thing remaining as the sun set on March 9, 1914, was a brick chimney, a planter and their Dovecote outbuilding.
His widow Frances — although initially optimistic about rebuilding— lost interest in the property and Club and sold the now nearly vacant lots to Richard Crane who went on to build his grand, Mediterranean Revival cottage on the former Solterra lots in 1917-1919.
361 Riverview Drive, 31.0575°N 81.421944°W: A simple Victorian Shingle Style home was built for 70-year-old businessman and philanthropist Gordon McKay [b.1821, d.1903]. McKay was a pioneer in the mechanization of the shoe industry, being the first to lease his invention, the “McKay machines” rather than selling them outright, collecting a small royalty on each pair of footwear made with his equipment, to include boots and shoes produced for the Union Army during the Civil War.
He then secured his market position by cartelization, helping create the United Shoe Machinery Corporation with his potential competitors. Upon his death in 1903, after providing for his family and various mistresses, he left the bulk of his estate to Harvard University as an endowment to provide for capable professors to train future engineers.
In 1905, 64-year-old William Rockefeller [b.1841, d.1922] purchased the cottage, and by 1913 had added two bedrooms to the seven-bedroom cottage, one a suite for his wife ‘Mira. Over time and a series of renovations that included relocating and rebuilding the fireplaces, a much larger porch with a porte cochere and a 2nd floor veranda, two additional dormer windows, servants wing, expanding both floors with the rounded upper and lower bay windows and in the capacious downstairs living room and upstairs bedroom suite, an elevator, a cedar-lined walk-in safe, and taps for hot and cold salt water on the bathtub in the master bedroom bath. Taken with what others and made him believe was a Guale burial mound from the earliest inhabitants of the island that sat between his 25-room cottage and the Jekyll River with it’s famous Marshes of Glynn, he named the cottage Indian Mound. However, after becoming bothered that it blocked his view, further investigation disclosed it was a shell midden — a domestic waste mound — and had it leveled6.
His wife died while at Indian Mound in 1920 and the house remained vacant until Williams’ death in January 2022, and two years later was acquired by Club member, heiress and philanthropist Helen Hartley Jenkins in 1924. When she passed in April 24 1934, she willed the cottage to her nephew who had met and married William Rockefeller’s youngest daughter; however, he declined and the cottage was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in exchange for debts and taxes owed.
After being conveyed to the state of Georgia in 1947, Tallu Fish acquired a lease in 1954 and both operated the cottage as a museum and used it as her home until 1964. She became the first curator of the Jekyll Island Museum and the cottage was briefly closed from 1968 through 1971 while undergoing renovation and has remained open as a museum ever since.
Note 6: As hard as I’ve tried, I’ve not been able to find a photo of the shell midden that gave the ‘Indian Mound’ its name before it was removed.
Lot 1 – 341 Riverview Drive, 31.055843°N 81.421647°W: A 19-room Dutch Colonial Revival covered in shingles features a gabled gambrel roof design typically used in northern climates to deal with snow loads was built for 48-year-old and retired Philadelphia marble works owner William Struthers [b.1848, d.1911]. The cottage has a recessed veranda and dormer windows, with seven rooms downstairs, five bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths, a servants room on the second floor, and seven rooms and a single bathroom in the attic most likely used as servants quarters and storage. The cottage, like many built during the Club Era, also has a basement. It was in 1899 when Struthers added the bay window to the den on the north-end of his cottage and the conservatory, aka, solarium — he also owned Lots 2 and 25 — on the south end of the cottage. The conservatory is thought to have been removed perhaps in the early 1950’s.
Moss Cottage was the first wired for electricity and had no gas fixtures. The Struthers other first on Jekyll was being the first to bring a “gasoline automobile” to the island, on December 26, 1900 that was not well received.. The Executive Committee had a prohibition on automobiles on Jekyll Island and when it arrived unannounced, Struthers was asked to ship it back to Philadelphia. Over Struthers’ objections, the vehicle was returned to the mainland. The following year, however, automobiles were allowed back on the island with strict rules regarding their use.
William Struthers married his childhood sweetheart, Savannah Durborrow who was known as ‘Vannie’ on 18 January 1870 at 22-years of age and were considered inseparable. He retired at the young age of 36 in 1884, joined the Club in 1885, and he was 48 when he built the Moss Cottage in 1896. His wife Vannie died on 23 November 1911, and it’s said that William died of a broken heart a few weeks later on 12 December 1911 at the age of 63.
The Struthers estate sold the cottage to 53-year-old tea merchant George H. Macy [b.1858, d.1918] in 1912, who had lived in apartment no. 6 in the Club Annex, but maintained for use by guests after buying the Moss Cottage who owned it until 1915, As for Moss Cottage, after William Macy died on 18 January 1918 at the age of 59, the home passed to his wife Kate Macy who died on 14 May 1921 and ownership then passed to her son W. Kingsland Macy, owned the Moss Cottage until 1947 when the state acquired the island.
It’s noteworthy that during the 1930-1931 and 1931-1932 seasons Moss Cottage was rented by Edmund Rogers, a widower who struck up a relationship with next-door neighbor Dorothy Goodyear, recently widowed wife of Frank Goodyear, Jr., who died in an auto accident in October 1930. They eventually married and would spend several seasons in the Goodyear Cottage, subsequently referred to as the Rogers Cottage.
The Moss Cottage remained empty until 1956 when the Jekyll Island Manager, James L. Asher, used it as his residence before it was used to house the Jekyll Island Museum in the 1980s and was opened to the public on 8 May 1997 following its restoration by the Jekyll Island Museum’s preservation staff.
Lots 33 & 34 acquired from Henry Hyde, and previously owned by Walter Furness who acquired them from Joseph Pulitzer when Pulitzer purchased the Furness Cottage – 375 Riverview Drive 31.06128333°N 81.42325°W: Designed designed by Howard and Cauldwell in the Beaux-Arts / Italian Renaissance Revival style for 48-year-old David H. King Jr., [b.1849, d.1916] the contractor who developed Madison Square Garden, the Mills Building, the Washington Arch, the Equitable building, Hotel Renaissance, the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. and was also an art collector, hotelier, and president of New York City’s Park Commission and the New York Dock Company. However, his life changed dramatically when during a European vacation his wife Mary died suddenly on 9 August 1895
It was the only single-story cottage built at the Club and the only one with a swimming pool — perhaps the earliest private residence to have a pool in Georgia — located in a courtyard at the center of the cottage. King contracted for the drilling of an artesian well on the property to supply water to the pool.
Edwin & Sara Gould
For a variety of reasons, in late 1899 King started making arrangements to sell his cottage. He offered the cottage for sale fully furnished for $35,000 $1,295,000 in 2023 $’s. Edwin Gould [b.1866, d.1933], the 33-year-old railroad executive, financier and second son of railroad magnate and financial speculator Jay Gould, bought the cottage in December of 1900, within 5 days of his first visit to Jekyll Island ahead of the 1901 club season. He gave it the name Chichota and set about to make additional repairs ahead of his family’s planned arrival in March 1901. He spared no expense in preparing the cottage for his family adding gas piping, hanging fixtures, and prepared his house for electricity as the Club was planning to build an electric plant the next year.
The Gould’s were committed to the Island and Club, purchasing and owning seven contiguous lots, using some of the land to build a recreational 3-story wood structure known as the ‘amusement house’ or ‘casino’ in 1902 housing a bowling alley, indoor shooting range, game room for his two sons with extra lodging upstairs for guests. Towards the back of his lots he also built a stable and small house known as Parland Cottage for his gardener Page Parland and his wife Aleathia.
The ‘Gould Compound’
In 1913, adjacent to the amusement house, Gould built an indoor tennis court that still stands. The amusement house was destroyed during the ‘State Owned Era’ by fire in on 18 June 19507 while leased by the wife of the Georgia State Constable stationed on the island who was operating the downstairs bowling alley and other features as a recreation center. The fire did not cause significant damage to the adjacent masonry indoor tennis court. However, the fire at the Gould Amusement House had been preceded by a fire back on 9 February 6b at the former Capt. Clark Cottage into which the same Georgia State Constable and his wife were in the process of moving. Although no foul play into the fires was found by a subsequent GBI investigation requested by the JIA, the Georgia State Constable was reassigned to a post in Americus, Georgia. A brick outline of the house’s location can be found in the parking lot east of the Hotel’s Annex building, between the DuBignon Cottage and the Power Plant now home to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.
Note 7: There is some disparity that I still need to resolve regarding the dates of the fire that destroyed the the Capt. Clark Cottage on 9 February 1950, and the Gould Casino on 18 June 1950 per one source. However on page 33 of Nick Doms ‘Millionaires to Commoners’ it infers without specific mention of dates that the two property fires occurred within one week of each other, and that both properties were being occupied and/or used by the Georgia State Patrol Constable assigned to the island and his wife.
In 1957, the indoor tennis court was remodeled and converted into the 800-seat, Gould Auditorium by the Jekyll Island Authority and served as the island’s first convention center. In 1957, the enclosed tennis court structure was remodeled and converted into the Gould Auditorium which served as the island’s first convention center. It played host to high school dances, noting the soon-to-be-famous Allman Brothers Band band played at last high school dance ever held in the Gould Auditorium on 2 June 1970.
Gould used two of the other lots to build a cottage in 1904 for for his wife Sarah’s7 parents and in-laws, Dr. and Mrs. George Shrady, initially known as the Shrady Cottage.
Note 8: You’ll find in different sources that his wife Sarah is often times referred to by her nickname Sally.
Unfortunately, George and his wife Hester only enjoyed their cottage together for two seasons in 1905 and 1906, as Dr. Shrady died suddenly in 1907. Hester Shrady remained a club member and visited through the 1916 season.
In an unfortunate twist of fate, in 1913 Edwin Gould also purchased the area known as Latham Hammock across the Jekyll Creek from the island and along with several partners, founded the Latham Hammock Club. He foresaw the Hammock becoming additional hunting and fishing grounds for Club members, as well as for men “of smaller means” not associated with the Jekyll Island Club.
Edwin’s two young sons, Edwin Jr. or “Eddie” and Frank enjoyed many winter seasons on the island in the pursuit of the active, athletic life. However, tragedy struck the family on 24 February 1917 when then 23-year old Eddie died from an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot while tending to traps set on Latham Hammock. At the time of the accident, his mother Sarah was in New York preparing to join her family in Jekyll where she received the news and immediately became so distraught she required medical attention, never again returned to Jekyll Island. Sarah compelled her mother Hester to no longer visit the island with, notwithstanding perhaps two visits in the 1920s when her other grandson, Frank, also visited and stayed at Chichota.
Frank Gould eventually built his Villa Marianna Cottage in 1928 on land in the Gould Compound to the north of the Gould family’s indoor tennis court, to which he added a greenhouse in the early 1930’s for use by the Parlands, who also looked after Frank’s cottage and they had his father Edwin’s so-called Chichota Cottage. Sara’s mother Hester ultimately abided by her daughter’s requests and eventually sold the Shrady cottage in 1925 to then Club president Dr. Walter B. James who gave the cottage the “Cherokee” nickname.
Taking a step back, Edwin Gould did not return to the island for four years after his son Eddie’s accidental death, and then only visited only a few times before his death at the age of 67 on 12 July 1933. Ownership of now vacant Chichota Cottage was eventually transferred to the Gould Estate through 1941 when it was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club.
By then, Chichota had fallen into disrepair and the Club had the structure razed in January 1941, leaving only the footprint of the masonry courtyard, the pool, a pair of imposing Corinthian lion statues, and some smaller pieces of Chichota’s structure. Today, the ruins of Chichota Cottage remain and the space within Chichota’s center courtyard now serves as an outdoor classroom space.
The Gould Compoound, c. 1920Detailed Survey of Gould Compound, c. 1920
Sidebar 2: The Full Story of Chichota and the Goulds
David King’s Short Time With His Cottage
Accustomed to constructing buildings in the North, David H. King Jr., did not fully appreciate and account for the hot and humid conditions of the southern coast when he built his cottage. This, coupled with the disastrous effects of a hurricane that hit the island in October of 1898, made matters far worse.
Not even a year after his cottage was finished, it was already having structural problems, both inside and out. Along with his orchard being destroyed and palms being “twisted,” the hurricane caused plaster to fall down from two bedroom ceilings, and the exterior gutters leaked. The cellar was full of water, but this was common after every heavy rain. Six months later, the pool began to leak and needed to be drained and repaired by a mason. By September of 1899, almost two years after his cottage had been built, the wooden window and door casings expanded tremendously making it impossible for the locks to hold them. At the same time, leaks were reported in the north and east portions of the roof.
With King’s cottage needing so many repairs and, in his role as a member of the Club’s executive Committee since 1892, his ongoing disagreement with then club president Henry Hyde over the location and design of the new club stables, it was no surprise King’s presence on the island diminished, and in late 1899 he started making arrangements to sell his cottage. The window and door casings were repaired, interior woodwork was wiped clean, the floor was cleaned, and fallen plaster repaired. He offered the cottage for sale fully furnished for $35,000 $1,295,000 in 2023 $’s.
Edwin Gould Acquires The Cottage in December 1900
Edwin Gould bought the cottage in December of 1900, within 5 days of his first visit to Jekyll Island ahead of the 1901 club season. He gave it the name Chichota and set about to make it ready for his family’s planned arrival in March 1901. He spared no expense in preparing the cottage, adding gas piping, hanging fixtures, and having the house wired for electricity as the Club was planning to build an electric plant the next year. Chichota was also the only cottage to have its own pier, extending even further out into the deeper channel of the Jekyll River where he could moor his yacht, installed a small boat storage building and on the shore had a boathouse for a motor launch.
Other structures erected on the ‘Gould Compound” over the years included a stable on Lot 38 acquired from Walter Furness by Gould behind the lots on which Chichota was built by David King Jr. The lot had previously been used to build the Union Chapel which remained on the lot to the east of Gould’s stables until it was moved to Red Row in 1904 for use by the Club’s colored employees as their chapel. A large, three-story ‘amusement house’ and guest quarters also known as ‘the casino’ was built on the lot in 1902 to the northwest of the Union Chapel’s location, to which was added an indoor tennis court in 1913. However, in 1904 Gould had a 20 room, two-story cottage built as a gift for his for his wife’s mother Hester, and her 2nd husband, 74-year-old Dr. George F. Shrady on yet another lot on the southern-end of the Gould Compound. It wasn’t until 1928 that the lot between the one with the amusement house with its attached indoor tennis courts and greenhouse and the one with the cottage by now called Cherokee and acquired by then Club president Dr. Walter B. James in 1925 was used by Edwin Gould’s son Frank to build his own cottage, Villa Marianna.
A Family Tragedy at Jekyll Brings An End To Sarah Gould’s Visits
Edwin, his wife Sarah and their two young sons, Edwin Jr. or “Eddie” and Frank enjoyed many winter seasons on the island. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the family on 24 February 1917 when 23-year old Eddie accidentally died from a self-inflicted gunshot while tending to traps set on Latham Hammock. Eddie had gone out in the early evening with his friend Noyes Reynolds for an overnight hunting excursion and found a raccoon in one of his traps. Not wanting to ruin the coonskin with birdshot, he decided to dispatch the animal with the butt of his loaded and cocked shotgun. The shotgun fired as he struck the racoon, discharging the gun into Eddie’s left groin at point-blank range, creating a 2-inch wide mortal wound that severed the femoral artery: he died of blood loss in moments. His hunting companion Noyes rowed 2-miles back to Jekyll to obtain assistance as he was unable to manage Gould’s lifeless body by himself in the marshes. It was 11:00pm before Edwin Jr’s body was returned to the island.
At the time of the accident, his father Edwin Sr. was in St. Augustine, Florida on business and his mother Sarah Gould was in New York. Upon receiving the news the following day, Sarah immediately became distraught and vowed never again to return to Jekyll Island. Edwin Gould did not return for four years, and then only a few times before his death in 1933, after which the cottage went unused. However, Gould’s younger son, Frank, continued to remain a member of the Club, visited regularly and stayed at Chichota during his visits until be built his own cottage in 1928, Villa Marianna, named for his daughter.
Riverview Drive, 31.0555°N 81.4212°W: What began as an Italian Renaissance Revival style was originally designed by Charles A. Gifford in 1897 for 51-year-old Joseph Pulitzer [b.1847, d.1911], publisher and editor of the editor of St. Louis Post Dispatch and New York World. It was the second cottage owned by Pulitzer situated on his recently acquired lots. Gifford had just designed the San Souci apartments built in 1896.
The first cottage built on the lot at Riverview Drive and Stable Road was in 1890 for Walter R. Furness, that stood alone at the southern end of the Club compound. Pulitzer purchased the cottage from Furness in 1896 and lived in it through two winter seasons. It was during this time that his neighbor, William Struthers was having his Moss Cottage built, which inspired Pulitzer to have a new, twenty-six-room brick, sound-proofed villa built on his lots. To do so, he relocated the Furness Cottage in 1897, approximately 125-feet to the east and after moving into his new cottage, used it to house his servants.
Joseph Pulitzer, in an effort to make Jekyll more appealing to his wife Kate, added a six-room wing in 1899, connected by a forty-two-foot glass solarium. In 1904, he added another wing with a music room, billiard parlor, and a special bedroom for his wife, still hoping to draw her to Jekyll more often.
On 29 October 1911, Pulitzer had a sudden heart attack and died at the age of 64 while sailing to Jekyll for the 1911-1912 season aboard his yacht, the Liberty as it sat anchored in Charleston Harbor for six days sitting-out threatening weather.
It wasn’t until February 1914 that his fully-furnished cottage was purchased by 66-year-old John A. Albright [b.1848, d.1931] , an art patron.coal magnate and businessman from Buffalo, New York, who since 1901 resided with his wife Susan during the winter seasons in apartment No. 3 of the Club Annex.
The house was conveyed to the Albright Estate in 1931 after Albright’s death, and then to the Jekyll Island Club in 1934. When the state of Georgia acquired Jekyll Island in 1947, the cottage was still standing. However, in 1951 a fire that some sources cite as being arson, damaged the interior. On June 23, 1951, the cottage was demolished as the Jekyll Island Authority did not have the funds needed to repair the original fire damage.
In an interesting form of recycling for the time, the Jekyll Island Authority salvaged bricks from Pulitzer Cottage to build some of the bathhouses n the Oleander Golf Course as well as the original golf clubhouse at Great Dunes Golf Course. The latter is now the Red Bug Pizza Restaurant next to Jekyll Island Mini Golf at the corner of Beachview and Shell Roads.
Lot 7, acquired from George Bleistein – 341 Riverview Drive, 31.0568059°N 81.4218°W: The Wood shingle Dutch Colonial Revival was designed and built in 1900 by Charles A. Gifford, who had just designed Pulitzer’s nearby Italian Revival Villa. The $28,000 $1,025,963 in 2023 $’s cottage was builtfor 60-year-old Henry K. Porter [b.1840, d.1921], an American businessman who began his adult life studying theology. However, he went on to make his fortune founding the H.K. Porter, Inc. firm in 1866 that became the largest producer of light-duty industrial locomotives in the US. Among other things, Porter also co-founded the YMCA and served a single term in the 58th U.S. Congress in 1903-1905 a a Representative of Pennsylvania.
Porter and his wife Annie first stayed at Mistletoe Cottage on 11 February 1902, naming the cottage for the parasitic plant that was found on many of the Live Oak trees at Jekyll Island. His wife became a well-known cottage colony hostess, with frequent social gatherings at their cottage. It’s noteworthy that the Porter’s rented out the Mistletoe Cottage during seasons when they did not come to Jekyll Island and one of those who Grob offered the cottage for the 1912 season to Senator Nelson Aldridge, who had previously visited the Club in 1910 in a surreptitious meeting held on the island where the “Aldrich Plan” that created the Federal Reserve was first crafted.
Henry Porter died in 1921 and 74-year-old John Claflin [b.1850, d.1938], the last living original member of the Club leased the home from Porter’s estate in 1924. Two years later bought it from the Porter Estate for a mere $6,000 $107,996 in 2023 $’s and owned the cottage until his death in 1938, after which ownership passed to his wife, Elizabeth Claflin.
Elizabeth Claflin owned the Mistletoe Cottage from 1938 to 1940 at which point ownership was conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club from 1940 to 1947. Under state control the Mistletoe Cottage was leased to former State Senator and Mayor of Cochran, Jimmy Dykes, who ran the Jekyll Island Club’s Hotel under lease to the Jekyll Island Authority. Mistletoe has also been used as business offices and several other things over the years.
One of the more fascinating rooms in the cottage is the sunroom with it’s hand-painted ceiling treatment portraying images of birds and leaves in brilliant colors. A preservation effort in 2019, to carefully remove, conserve, digitize, and reproduce the delicate bamboo, rice paper, and silk fabric ceiling covering that deteriorated over time, in part due to moisture from the damp basement — a common problem with the many buildings from the Club Era that have basements –– and some short-sighted modifications made in the 1950’s – 1970’s by the Jekyll Island State Park Authority.
191 Old Plantation Road, 31.060983°N 81.42211°W: An Italian Renaissance Revival home with 20 rooms, 6 baths, 12 bedrooms, and a service elevator designed by Carrere & Hastings for Edwin Gould, who had it built as a gift for his for his wife’s mother Hester, and her 2nd husband, 74-year-old Dr. George F. Shrady, [b.1830, d.1907]. Dr. Shrady was the physician who attended to president Ulysses Grant towards the end of Grant’s life, which brought him to the public’s attention. Dr. Shrady was also the consulting pathologist for President Garfield’s autopsy.
Dr. Shrady and his wife first occupied the cottage in 1905, but Dr. Shrady died suddenly in 1907. His wife Hester Shrady who became a Club member in her own right retained her Club membership through 1916 and ownership of the cottage until 1925. However, she visited only once in 1921 and then again in 1924 with her grandson Frank Gould, who stayed in the family’s Chichota cottage. Note that much of the history of the Shady Cottage and it’s use after 1917 and the accidental death of the Shady’s grandson Eddie Gould Jr. while visiting Jekyll Island, was shaped by that incident and addressed above, in the King Cottage / Chichota background and detailed history sidebar.
In 1925 club president Dr. Walter B. James [b.1858 , d.1927] acquired the Shrady Cottage and named it Cherokee. Upon his passing in 1927, his wife Helen retained her membership and ownership of the cottage until the Club’s closing in 1942 when it was conveyed to the club.
During the 1950s the Cherokee Cottage was refurbished so that then Governor Marvin Griffin could use it as the 2nd Georgia Governor’s Mansion in the south, but the matter was so controversial it went unused. Although sought-out for a potential lease over the years, it was not used again until it housed the offices of the Jekyll Island Museum through the 1990’s. It was renovated again in 2001 by the Jekyll Island Club Hotel in partnership with The Jekyll Island Authority as a bed & breakfast with 10 guest rooms and baths as well as a meeting space for groups or families.
321 Riverview Drive, 31.0565°N 81.4218°W: An Italian Renaissance Revival home built between 1903 and 1906 by New York architects Carrère and Hastings for Frank Henry Goodyear [b.1847, d.1907] of Buffalo, New York, noting they also designed his primary home in Buffalo. The first floor featured seven rooms and a half-bath; the second contained five bedrooms and three bathrooms; and the third floor was used for the servants’ quarters and storage.
As for coming into his wealth, after a short time spent teaching, Frank became a bookkeeper for Robert Looney who ran a farm, sawmill, a general store, a feed and grain business and owned vast timberlands in Pennsylvania. Frank married Robert’s daughter Jospehine in 1871. When Looney died in 1872, they inherited the timberlands from her father’s estate. Goodyear, who had moved to Buffalo before Looney’s death, used the inheritance to start his lumber business and enterprises. He was ultimately the founder and president of several companies, including the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad, Great Southern Lumber Company, Goodyear Lumber Co., Buffalo & Susquehanna Coal and Coke Co., and the New Orleans Great Northern Railroad Company.
Frank Goodyear and his wife, Josephine only spent one year in Goodyear Cottage before Frank died in 1907. Josephine Goodyear became a member of the Jekyll Island Club two-years later — the Club holding the Goodyear membership while rules were updated — and lived in the Goodyear Cottage until 1915 when she died from a heart attack. The ownership of the cottage then passed to Frank Henry Goodyear, Jr. [b.1891 – d.1930].
Following Goodyear, Jr.‘s death in an automobile accident in New York on 13 October 1930 at the age of 38, his widow Dorothy Goodyear Inherited the Goodyear Cottage. Dorothy Goodyear came to meet and marry Edmund Rogers, a widower who lost his wife in 1919 and rented the Moss Cottage from the Macy’s in 1930 and 1931. The Goodyear Cottage became known as the Roger’s Cottage through their last visit in 1937. It is believed that at some point ownership of the cottage was conveyed to the Club after it closed in 1942, as it was carried as part of the Club’s assets in a 1944 inventory. The Jekyll Island Club owned the Goodyear Cottage until 1947 when the State of Georgia acquired Jekyll Island.
The cottage underwent a restoration in 1973 and was eventually occupied as an art gallery by the Jekyll Island Arts Association. Today, the cottage is used as a Gift Shop, Art Gallery, and Museum featuring various items produced by Jekyll Island Arts Association.[24]
Built on the site of Frederic Baker’s former Solterra Cottage that burned to-the-ground in 1914 [Lot 28 acquired from L.M. Lawson and another from Henry Hyde] – 371 Riverview Drive 31.060596°N 81.4226187°W: A 13-room Italian Renaissance style cottage was designed by Henry Dangler of Chicago who died before the project was finished. David Adler, Dangler’s partner, finished the Crane Cottage project in 1917. The cottage’s sunken garden and central courtyard sit on the site of Solterra.
The cottage was built for 44-year-old Richard Teller Crane Jr.[b.1873, d.1931], who eventually succeeded his father as president of Crane Company in 1914 — one of the largest and most successful plumbing manufacturers of fixtures and supplies — and also founded an elevator company that was later acquired by Otis Elevator. Richard Crane was the second most wealthy person in Chicago at that time, following Julius Rosenwald, the President of Sears and Roebuck. Richard Crane married Florence Higgenbothum on June 4, 1904, and they had several children by the time they joined the Jekyll Island Club on 2 March 1911.
The Crane’s leased the Fairbank [aka, Fergusson] Cottage when they first joined the Jekyll Island Club. And, although he first planned to acquire Lots 40 & 41 just north of the Baker Cottage, Solterra, and made an offer to do so to the Club on 6 April 1914, an issue he raised with regard to the lots being sold on a lease instead of a deed, caused a delay in the sale that proved to be fortuitous for Crane. It was on 9 March 1914 that Solterra caught on fire and burned to the ground. Although Frederic Baker’s widow Frances said she’d rebuild, she then changed her mind and sold the lots to Crane for an undisclosed amount, providing him with far better lots on which to build his cottage. The Craig cottage was designed in 1916, built in 1917 and 1918 and first occupied for the 1919 season, with the Cranes renting Cornelius Bliss’ apartment No. 2 in the Clubhouse Annex in 1917 and 1918.
Once finished, the Crane Cottage was the largest and most expensive cottage built on Jekyll Island at a cost of $100,000 $2,404,601 in 2023 $’s . The cottage was stucco over brick with a Terra Cotta roof and quite different in many respects from all previously built cottages at Jekyll. However, it is noteworthy that the oak wood flooring in the living room had originally been black and white Italian marble while the house was being built. First heard about by Club members while still being designed, it even became the subject of executive committee meetings in 1917 as some members saw the home as being so pretentious and out-of-character for the Club that it threatened to overshadow the clubhouse and, “destroy what may be the considered the greatest charm, the atmosphere of simplicity.” Having learned of the general statement and although not attributed to the Cranes by name, they changed the flooring to a less lavish, but high-grade oak floor. A changing of the guard had clearly occurred with the much younger, heir to his father’s Gilded Era fortune who had come into adulthood in the Progressive Era instead of the Victorian Era as had the founding members of the Club.
While the Cranes lived a much more formal, elegant and lavish lifestyle even while on the island, they were well-liked by other members who found them honest, affable, democratic, approachable, cordial, sympathetic and unusually generous, especially to his workers as well as the Club during the troubling years that persisted throughout the years of their membership. Richard Crane sat on the club’s board of directors, was the first Vice President and sat on many committees as a member of the executive committee and his wife, Florence, sat on and even chaired the Club’s welfare committee for many year, even after Richard’s death. Richard practiced his father’s philosophy that “the possession of great wealth brought with it great obligation” by establishing The Crane Fund in 1914 to aid former employees and their dependents in need of assistance, a Veteran League to recognize employees with a quarter century or more of service and started a life insurance program for Crane employees in 1917. Over the course of his life he made gifts of company stock to employees valued at more than $13.5 million.
Richard Crane died in 1931 at the age of 58 from a heart attack back having suffered from a heart condition while being treated at Doctors Hospital in New York City. His wife joined the Jekyll Island Club and took ownership of the Crane Cottage throughout the 1939 when she deeded it over to her children.
The Crane Cottage was subsequently conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club in 1941 ahead of Georgia taking control of Jekyll Island in 1947. Just prior to the state take-over of the island, the Club sold the Crane Cottages furnishings to J.H. Elliott of the Southern Appraisal Company for $11,380 $157,069 in 2023 $’s. Although there were inquiries early-on in the 1950’s about leasing the cottage from the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) including one from Frank Gould’s widow, Helen Gould who was quoted $500 $5,720 in 2023 $’s per month vs. the $60 $686 in 2023 $’s monthly rates being charged for other former Club cottages, it sat empty until 1955. In 1955 the JIA leased it to Georgia state senator Jimmy Dykes’ Jekyll Island Hotel Association along with the clubhouse and the San Souci apartments who did a refurbishment and rented it as the Crane Hotel between 1955 and 1960 for $6 – $12 $70-$140 in 2023 $’s per night. It was eventually refurbished again during the 1980’sand occupied by the Jekyll Island Authority and rented-out for social functions such as weddings and then restored again in 2001 to become additional lodging as a bed and breakfast for the Jekyll Island Club Resort.
381 Riverview Drive, 31.062855°N 81.423218°W: designed by John Russell Pope — who built the Jefferson Memorial — in the Spanish Eclectic and Italian Renaissance Revival style for Jekyll’s new president, Walter Jennings [b.1858, d.1933] in 1927 at a cost of $48,297 $854,326 in 2023 $’s. It takes its name from the Guale name for Jekyll Island.
The Villa Ospo is the only cottage with a garage, noting automobiles were first allowed on Jekyll in 1901 with many restrictions. Jennings was an owner in a mercantile firm called Jennings and Brunsil and owned stock in Standard Oil noting his brother in law was William Rockefeller. Walter Jennings married Marie Jean Pollard Brown, and they had three children. Walter Jennings became a member of the Jekyll Island Club in 1927. Walter Jennings also also played a role in the law that changed Jekyl with one L to Jekyll with two Ls in 1929.
Ironically, Marie and Walter Jennings were involved in an early automobile accident on Jekyll Island on 4 January 1933. The Jennings collided with a truck (trucks were rare on Jekyll) on Oglethorpe Road that sent his wife went through the windshield who received two black eyes, and Walter into the steering wheel. The following day Walter complained of stomach pains that got progressively worse even under a doctor’s care and he subsequently died of a heart attack on 9 January 1933.
Jennings widow Jean continued to make annual visits to Jekyll, although shorter, throughout the Club Era. However, after the Club closed after the 1942 season, she deeded Villa Ospo over to the Club on 28 May 1942. The State of Georgia took over the Villa Ospo and Jekyll Island in 1947 and as he did with the Crane Cottage, Dewey Scarboro –– a real estate developer and former Georgia Tech football star — leased the Villa Ospo on 14 May 1955 and used it as a revenue-generating attraction.
Dewey and his wife Grace Scarboro then of Decatur, Georgia, visited Jekyll Island and fell under the spell of an abandoned historic cottage and after clearing the flooded basement of deadly snakes, began restoration half-joking in 1958 to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter that he’d erected entire subdivisions faster than it took to restore the moldering stucco and crumbling woodwork of Villa Ospo. Dewey scoured New Orleans for lavish antiques, and Grace, an artist, obsessed over the Spanish Eclectic exterior. They transformed the property into a lavish showplace and for several years operated it as an attraction. Guests could sleep in a bed rumored to have once belonged to Napoleon’s second wife. The luxe furnishings wowed 1950s visitors but were not in keeping with the original decor of the home, which Jennings built as a winter getaway for his family in 1927. Like many of the Northern industrial tycoons who built retreats on Jekyll, the Jennings embraced a relaxed style. “They would have been comfortable here, but [the house] was not furnished in the same style as their mansions up North,” said Andrea Marroquin, curator of the Jekyll Island Museum.
Villa Ospo presently houses the offices of the Jekyll Island Foundation and the home and grounds can be rented for special events through the Jekyll Island Museum.
201 Old Plantation Road, 31.062011°N 81.4223338°W: designed by Mogens Tvede in the Spanish Ecletic and Italian Renaissance Style popular in Florida at the time for 29-year-old Frank Miller Gould9, [b.1899, d.1945], the older surviving son of Edwin Gould in 1928 and named Villa Marianna after Frank Gould’s two year old daughter Marianne. The stucco on block 15-room cottage with 6 bathrooms, several balconies, two courtyards, fountain, reflection pool, and a third story watch tower .was the last cottage built at the Jekyll Island Club.
Note 9: Photos of Frank M. Gould as an adult are few and far between. This passport photo of a young Frank Gould and the one below from the black & white newspaper clipping following his wedding in 1924 — by which point her was only 25 — are the only two I’ve come across. However, it is easy to find photos of his flamboyant uncle, Frank Jay Gould that are sometimes mistaken given their same first and last names.
As were many of the cottages and buildings at the Club, local builder George Cowman was the contractor for the property with a recorded tax value in 1928 of $29,000 $497,520 in 2023 $’s. The Spanish-inspired design features enclosed courtyards and a large formal garden. A long, rectangular fountain on the west elevation dramatizes the entry. The two-story house also features a tower on the south elevation.
Frank was the son of Jekyll Island Club Member Edwin Gould his wife Sarah “Sally” Cantine Shrady, and had a younger brother Edwin “Eddie” Gould who died as a result of a tragic hunting accident while vacationing at Jekyll Island in 1917. Following voluntary military service commissioned as an officer in 1918 to 1922, he became the Assistant Secretary for the St. Louis & Southwestern RR, originally founded by his grandfather, Jay Gould. In 1924 he was promoted to Vice President, a position he held until his sudden death in 1945.
His first wife was Florence “Betsy” Amelia Bacon whom he married in 1924 and by whom he had two children: Marianne in 1926 and Edwin Jay in 1932. From 1925 through 1927, Frank and Betsy stayed at “Chichota” before building Villa Marianna in 1928. From 1929 to 1932 and again from 1939 to 1942 the Goulds were very active at the Club. During World War II, he was commissioned as a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps and served at Cochran Field, Macon, GA. from 1942 to 1944.
The long absence strained his marriage and they were divorced on 6 May 1944 at Reno, Nevada. Frank then married Helen Curran of Macon, Georgia, a month later on 7 June 1944 and honeymooned at “Villa Marianna”. Seven months later, while back at the Gould home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, Frank died suddenly from a ruptured aorta on 14 January 1945. This was at a time when he was in the midst of attempting to acquire and re-open the Jekyll Island Club and island as part of a syndicate with Club president Bernon Prentice and Bill Jones, owner of the Sea Island Company and Cloisters Resort.
The New York lawyer who helped to settle Frank Gould’s estate, Lawrence Condon, acquired Villa Marianna in 1945 as part of his compensation from Helen Gould for his legal work. Although he like the Maurice sisters who owned the Hollybourne Cottage fought to retain ownership of their homes on the island when the state of Georgia obtained ownership via the condemnation process on 2 April 1947. Condon was granted a $60,000 $828,270 in 2023 $’s settlement for the cottage.
During the state-owned years, Villa Marianna was used for for a variety of purposes. Early-on, prisoners brought-in to work on rehabilitating the island and Club structures by the state and managed by Hoke Smith were housed in the Villa Marianna which was the first large-scale renovations in Jekyll Island’s National Historic Landmark district. It became the headquarters of the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) between 1950 and 1978, housed two executive directors between 1978 and 1995, and is now available for rent from the JIA along with the Hollybourne Cottage as a special events venue.
Built in the early 1890’s, the interdenominational Union Chapel, was relocated to the ‘Quarters,’ aka, Red Row for use as the Club’s colored employees’ church in 1903 or 1904. It was replaced in 190410 by the larger and more ornate, stained, all-wood interdenominational Faith Chapel.
Note 10: The Faith Chapel’s Tiffiany stained glass panels — at right — were not added until 1921.
By some accounts, both chapels were in the same location behind Solterra; however, in the more recent Cottage Colony book by June McCash, she notes on Page 57 the Union Chapel was built on Lot 38, originally owned by Walter Furness and later acquired by Edmund Gould. On that lot Gould built his stables — which may be the structure behind the Union Chapel in the photo below as it’s definitely not the two-story Baker-Crane Stable — and eventually the amusement house in 1902 and indoor tennis courts in 1913. Therefore, I’m inclined to believe it was on the Furness Lot 38.
The Club Beach at the East End of Shell Road
Far different from what it looks like by the 1960’s, never mind today, the original main road to the beach area most frequently used for social and recreation was what was eventually named Shell Road, one of the few roads on which autos early-on in 1901 were allowed to use to gain access to the beach. The tree lined road where it terminated at the beach was flanked by a wood bathhouse with changing rooms to the south, and various different structures to the north, including a ‘playhouse’ where children and their watchers’ would go while the adults enjoyed the beach.
The First Golf Course
The Golden Isles’ first official recognition as a golf venue came in 1894 when the Jekyll Island Golf Club was registered with the United States Golf Association. However, the Jekyll Island Club did not built its first golf course until 1898, much to the consternation of the game committee who had been reluctant to cede any land used for hunting to the nascent island sport.
The course was laid out by Arthur Claflin, the younger brother of Club member John Clalfin with a more detailed design by Scottish golfer Willie Dunn, and paid for by subscription. In a quote from Almira Rockefeller regarding voluntary subscriptions and the first golf course noted in a letter to her daughter, “the golf course is a great expense and kept up by voluntary subscription. We never use it but pay more for its upkeep than many that use it.”
The nine-hole golf course was located on what is today the general area north of Villa Ospo and east of the airport. While still under construction in October 1898 while trying to get it ready for the 1899 season, a hurricane covered the course with tide water such that there would be no grass on it when the club opened in January. Accounts of the day note the course was “absolutely flat with sand greens” and caddies used mats to drag and even-up the green after play was completed on a hole. According to the USGA, the exact layout of the course is unknown, though one account said, “It wasn’t even the quality of a cow pasture.
” A “new and improved” 16-hole course, designed by Donald J. Ross just east of what is now the Historic District, was built in 1910 near the lakes on land that is now part of Jekyll Island’s Oleander course. In 1913 Canadian golf pro Kark Keffer designed and built the first 9-hole Oceanside course to adjoin what became only the Ross 9-hole course. In 1926, the Club hired Walter Travis, a foremost golf professional, to redesign the Keffer 9-hole course and add a new back nine course to its south, on the other side of Shell Road. Travis declared he “was enthusiastic over the prospects at [Jekyll] for one of the most beautiful courses in the country.” Great Dunes — the oldest historic course still in use — opened for play in January of 1928. It was one of the last courses Travis designed. He passed away in the summer of 1927 and never saw the course completed.
Nine of the original 18 holes are still intact and continue to be played today. However, during the ‘state-owned years’ the protective dunes along the east coast of the island were ‘removed’ by the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) in the 1950’s so visitors to the island would be able to see the beach from the recently created Beachview Road. They also decided to remove the back nine of the Great Dunes course so the removed sand and soil could be used to build-up the earthen embankments on what is now the GA Route 520, the Jekyll Island Causeway west of the original lift-bridge. The causeway project cost Georgian’s far more than the Island itself did in 1947, some $920,000 $10,526,612in 2023 $’s and the bridge was replaced in 1996 by the current M.E. Thompson Memorial bridge that sits next to what remains of the first drawbridge. The soil from the dunes was also used to build a road from GA 520 into the Historic District, and topsoil from the back nine-greens of the 1927 golf course were also used along the new perimeter road installed by the JIA.
The JIA and developers back-in-the-day did not fully understand the importance of the natural dunes to the island’s ecosystem, some as high as 40-feet, and their natural ability to prevent beach erosion. They also removed the dunes from the beaches south of Shell Road later in the 1950’s. The removal of the dunes created a new problem for the JIA and island, in the form of accelerated beach erosion along the entire length of the beach and accretion at the southern-end of the island. In more recent years the beach erosion has been addressed with several ‘dune restoration projects and the installation of rock erosion barriers to the east of the hotels along the beach ‘ that typically cite recent hurricanes as the cause of beach erosion, conveniently omitting the state-created root-cause with their removal of the natural dunes in the 1950’s.
The Golf Course Tee House on the Beach
The ‘Tee House’ just north of Shell Road originally placed near the 1st Tee of the 1910 Oceanside Golf Course, was relocated slightly further east when the course was redesigned and a back nine was added in 1927 to what became known as the Great Dunes course, sitting between the 1st and 10th tees. It was razed in 1948 or 1949 and replaced with a new dual use Clubhouse and Beach Pavilion/Casino and Bath House; it is now the home of Tortuga Jacks. In addition to being a rest-stop for golfers between the front and back nine holes of the Great Dunes course, it was a social gathering place where, towards the end of the Club Era a movie projector and screen were installed where Club members would go to watch movies.
The following is a visual overview of the four golf courses that were established during the Club Era that I created in August 2024 while working on the 3rd Segment of my Jekyll Island history as I reconciled the JIAs decision to remove of the Great Dunes back nine holes in 1953.
The Bicycle Paths
Over the years, Club members ‘donated’ the funds needed to clear paths on the island that were graded and covered with crushed sea shells to create bicycle paths. Each of the paths bore the name of its benefactor and eventually ran the length of the island from where the Soccer Fields are presently located to Driftwood Beach, with Shell Road — now Shell Path, north of ‘new’ Shell Road –– and Harkness Bicycle Path being the primary routes to the Rockefeller Path to the South, and the McKay Path to the North, that became the Gould Path at Baker Road. At the ends of these bicycle paths were additional bridle paths where the wider Oglethorpe, Bay and Old Plantation Roads intersected that were likely where the paths became too soft and sandy for the crushed shell paving an unsuitable for bicycles or autos, but that’s just a guess. One of the later paths to be added as apparently the Crane Bicycle Path that began in the Club District where the present day Rockefeller-Crane Path begins that heads out to the south and eventually merges with the Rockefeller Path close to where the water tower is now located, mid-way between the Hampton Inn and Soccer Complex.
The Colored-Staff Quarters & Red Row
Remembering the Club Era coincided with the segregation laws regarding white and colored housing as well as just about everything else, while a colored dormitory was original built for the single colored staff just behind the dormitory annex for white staff located just to the northeast of the clubhouse, by 1915 there were nearly 20 small staff homes to the east of the Club Compound for white married staff with children and a similar provision was needed for the club’s colored staff with families.
Based on consultation with San Denegal, the highly regarded colored foreman of work crews and staff supervisor for whom daily commutes to Brunswick via the ferry were no longer practical, ten small homes were built and made available for a nominal cost to the colored members of the staff with families in the area, adjacent to and north of the Club Compound known as the Quarters. There was also a commissary & store, the caddie lodge and other buildings as well as the relocated Union Chapel. Owing to the color of the red rolled housing fabric used on the small home’s roofs and walls, the line of homes became known as ‘Red Row.’
I’ve included an extract of the 1920 Sanford Fire Map of Jekyll Island’s Club Compound with the Quarters aligned per the Sanford Map notations to add context to where Red Row and the other colored staff buildings were located. Note that between 1916 and 1920 house no. 7 most-likely burned-down since it is not shown on the survey map.
The overlay below uses the 1920 Sanford Map superimposed on a current satellite image of the Historic District with the Quarters and Red Row shown in their correct location. It provides a good idea of where both were located, noting the last remaining house from Red Row was being used as a storage building and razed in the 1970’s. The Caddy Lodge would have been just to the east of the intersection of James & Stable Roads, where a gravel access road to the 1972 Amphitheater and JAI grounds-keeping nursery is now located, photo above right. The main road along Red Row at Bryom Place, would be the gravel access road to the off-limits nursery .
Side-by-Side Photos of Then and Now….
Along Riverview Drive in the Historic District
Old Plantation Road, With Crane Cottage Rear Entrances on Left
The Jekyll Island Club’s Role in the Creation of the Federal Reserve
Creating a New Plan for the Managing the U.S. Monetary System
There is no doubt the secret meetings held at the Jekyll Island Clubhouse between 23 and 30 November 1910 are of significant historic importance. However, the mere fact the Jekyll Island Club’s clubhouse was selected as the place where the extended Thanksgiving weekend meeting — arranged and lead by Rhode Island Republican Senator Nelson Aldrich and the chairman of the National Monetary Commission — took place is interesting, but may be given more significance that is warranted or implied, usually by innuendo, perhaps in the name of promoting tourism.
The meeting could have been held in many other secluded locations with the same level of secrecy and the same outcome, as none of the meeting participants were members of the Jekyll Island Club nor had any previous direct ties to the Club at the time the meeting was held.
A significant amount of history regarding the creation of a United States central bank would be required to fully understand the significance of what compelled Senator Aldrich and his consultant from the J.P. Morgan Company, Henry P. Davison, to decide a secret meeting of a hand-picked, very small group of economists and bankers would be the best course of action to develop a proposal for what instead of becoming the third attempt at creating a U.S. central bank. What came out of that meeting would ultimately be the blueprint for what became the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. To that end, and for those interested, here is a collection of articles — some repetitive in instances — that provide a lot of that history:
November 1910, Senator Aldrich’s ‘Duck Hunt” at Jekyll Island
However, setting aside that minor detail of ‘where’ the meeting could have been held, the events leading up to the meeting at Jekyll Island in November 1910 began when perhaps as many as seven key meeting participants somewhat covertly11 travelled together by train to Jekyl Island, leaving Hoboken, New Jersey the evening of 22 November 1910 aboard Senator Aldrich’s private rail12 car enroute to Brunswick, Georgia, arriving sometime later the next day on 23 November.
Note 11: According to Henry P. Davison’s biographer, Thomas Lamont, all the meeting participants who boarded Senator Aldrich’s private train in Hoboken were sworn to secrecy by Senator Aldrich and were to travel incognito to avoid contact with the press. However, Senator Aldrich’s biographer, Nathaniel Wright Stephenson, Professor of History and Biography, Scripps College and Claremont Colleges relates that when the party arrived at Brunswick, Georgia, the station master greeted them with a surprising remark: “We know who you are and reporters are waiting outside.” Davison is reported to have said “Come out, old man, I will tell you a story”… It’s not known what Davison told the station master, but purportedly when he returned smiling, he said “they won’t give us away.” The reporters disappeared and no more was heard of the secret Jekyll Island meeting or even the “Duck Hunt” cover-story Senator Aldrich and Davison had told everyone in the group to use if confronted with their time on Jekyll Island. The truth about the secret meeting at Jekyll Island wasn’t known until it was revealed by Stephenson in his biography of Senator Nelson Aldrich published in 1930.
Note 12: I suggest ‘somewhat covertly’ , in that Senator Aldrich’s private luxury railcar was well known along the rail lines between Rhode Island, New York, City and Washington, D.C. by 1910. So, it’s not a stretch to say Senator Aldrich’s personal railcar taking on a party of six to eight men who, along with their luggage on a cold, snowy night in Hoboken, wouldn’t have drawn the attention of someone who ‘tipped-off’ a media contact with that information and the travel plan for the private car, to include it’s final destination which would have been known by employees of the rail line and train station.
Pulling from the various memoirs eventually published when the Jekyll Island meeting was finally made public in the 1930’s, I suspect the majority of time spent by the group on 23 November would have been consumed by travel between the train station and hour-long trip by water to the Jekyll Island wharf — aboard the Club’s private launch Howland with Captain Clark at the helm, who was also the off-season manager of the Club –– before being given time to get settled into their rooms at the clubhouse, have dinner and discussions ahead of the more formal meetings the day after 24 November, Thanksgiving day. It is reported, the group enjoyed wild turkey with oyster stuffing at the clubhouse13 for their Thanksgiving dinner. The latter was possible because as per usual, Ernest Grobb arrived in mid-November on the 18th to begin getting the club in order, which would have included having the long-term, regular staff who interacted with the club members and their guests on the island in addition to the colored staff members who lived on the island on Red Row throughout the year.
Note 13: As an interesting aside, and again in the name of secrecy, throughout their time together the seven members of the group were told to use only their first names to prevent the clubhouse staff from learning more about their identities. However, according to Vanderlip’s autobiography, he and Davison went even further: “Davison and I adopted even deeper disguises, abandoning our own first names. On the theory that we were always right, he became Wilbur and I became Orville”. Vanderlip and Davison would continue to call each other Wilbur and Orville for years, with they and other members of the group also referring to themselves as members of the “First Name Club” for decades.
Again, that the meeting occurred on Jekyll Island is often-times mis-understood to believe it was some of the rich and powerful members of the Jekyll Island Club, such as J.P. Morgan Sr., his son J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr. or William Rockefeller, who were at this meeting since their names are frequently mentioned in association with the Club. In fact, J.P. Morgan Sr. is frequently mis-attributed as one of the founders, the man who bought the island, or the man who built the San Souci Apartments, or was a past-president of the Club none of which is true. However, his son J.P. ‘Jack” Morgan Jr did service as the second-to-last Club president 23-years after the meeting, from 1933 – 1938.
By 1910, J.P. Morgan Sr. would have been 73-years of age and died two-years later in 1913. Rockefeller would have been 69-years of age and retired in 1911, having handed the reins of managing their businesses to others. In fact, in 1910 the J.P. Morgan Company became Morgan Grenfell & Co with J.P. Morgan Sr. as the senior partner at the firm and its highest executive authority, but no longer holding the title of chairman or CEO. However, it is likely true that Davison enlisted the assistance of J.P. Morgan Sr. to ‘pull the strings needed’ with then Jekyll Club President Charles Lanier to make the Jekyll Island Clubhouse available over the Thanksgiving Day holiday week14.
Note 14: In 1910 at least one of the cottage-owning Club members, Charles Maurice and his family, would arrive at Jekyll and open their cottage in late November or early December the Club’s kitchen and dining room had been fully staffed for the season which is why Hollybourne was one of perhaps only two of the ‘Millionaire Cottages’ to have a small kitchen. However, purportedly in 1910, the Maurice family did not register until 29 November, by which time the “Duck Hunting Group” would have been getting ready to depart the following day while the Maurice family put Hollybourne in order.
The six or seven members of the Aldrich party included the following, none of whom were members of the Jekyll Island Club and two of whom haven’t been conclusively confirmed as being part of the group that participated in the meetings at Jekyll.
Nelson W. Aldrich [69], Republican “whip” in the Senate, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, business associate of J.P. Morgan, father-in-law to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., along with his private secretary Arthur Shelton.
Prof. A. Piatt Andrew [37], Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
Frank A. Vanderlip [46], president of the National City Bank of New York, the most powerful of the banks at that time, representing William Rockefeller and the international investment banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.
Henry P. Davison [43], senior partner of the J.P. Morgan Company15.
Paul M. Warburg [42], a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company, a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France, and brother to Max Warburg who was head of the Warburg banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands.
Possibly… Benjamin Strong [38], head of J.P. Morgan’s Bankers Trust Company16.
Possibly… Charles D. Norton [39] – President of the First National Bank of New York, aligned with the J.P. Morgan Company.
Present but in an administrative capacity… Arthur B. Sheldon, Aldrich’s personal secretary.
Note 15: The tie-in to J.P. Morgan Sr. was clearly Davison, who was both a senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company, and generally regarded as Morgan Sr’s personal emissary. Moreover, Davison was also the J.P. Morgan Company consultant to Senator Aldrich’s National Monetary Commission and it was at Davison’s suggestion to Senator Aldrich they assemble a few trusted advisers to form a working group for the purpose of drafting a banking reform bill that could be presented to Congress by the National Monetary Commission. Going further, it was Senator Aldrich and Davison who selected the other five members of the group and Davison who suggested the meeting be held in secret and offered up the remote, private island home of the hunting and recreation retreat known as the Jekyll Island Club, of which his partner, J.P. Morgan Sr was one of the original members. Davison would become a member of the Club in 1912 through 1917 Senator Aldrich would become a member of the Jekyll Island Club in 1912 until his passing in early 1915; however, his estate maintained the membership until 1927.
Note 16: It’s never been conclusively determined if Benjamin Strong actually travelled-to and attended the meeting at Jekyll Island. The same could be said of Charles D. Norton, as his name appears in the same list of attendees included in many articles regarding the Jekyll Island group, but not all and is not named in any of the key memoirs or accounts published by other meeting attendees.
What Was Significant & What Was Accomplished
There is no record of the proceedings of the Jekyll Island meeting and, while Senator Aldrich’s private secretary was also present and took stenographic minutes, they were either lost or destroyed. It’s also important to recognize that:
Neither Vanderlip nor Warburg were associated with the National Monetary Commission.
Davison was merely a special consultant to Senator Aldrich on banking matters and had accompanied the commission on its $300,000 taxpayer-funded trip to Europe in the summer of 1908.
Andrew had been a special assistant to the commission, but at the time of the Jekyll Island meeting he was merely the assistant secretary of the treasury.
As Stephenson wrote in Aldrich’s biography, “none of us knew certainly what Mr. Aldrich wanted in the way of a new banking bill. As a matter of fact Mr. Aldrich knew about as little of what he wanted as we did.”
Senator Aldrich’s request for absolute secrecy was honored.
Even after the veil of secrecy was lifted with the publication of Stephenson’s 1930 biography of Senator Aldrich, no one still knows what each of the participants contributed, with the possible single exception of Warburg, who had published a draft of a central bank proposal.
But that uncertainty did not extend to the necessity for a central bank. Senator Aldrich had embraced the need for a central bank after his National Monetary Commission trip Europe in the summer of 1908. Vanderlip and Warburg were already on record as favoring a central bank that could issue an asset-based currency. However, what Senator Aldrich’s group at Jekyll had to decide was, “What kind of central bank?”
In terms of what was accomplished at the secret Jekyll Island meeting:
In a private memorandum prepared for Davison’s biography by Thomas Lamont he wrote, “The first rough draft of a bill was developed at the meeting at Jekyll Island, attended by Mr. Davison, Mr. Warburg, and Mr. Vanderlip, as well as the Senator, his secretary and myself. This was in the Winter of 1909 [sic], I think, and the meeting was kept secret lest it be charged that Wall Street was dictating the bill.”
Paul Warburg wrote: The small party, consisting of Senator Aldrich, Mr. Shelton, secretary, and Professor A. Piatt Andrew, special assistant to the Monetary Commission, Davison, Frank A. Vanderlip, and myself, set out on its trip to Jekyl Island in November, 1910. It [our party] spent a week in complete seclusion and privacy, and it developed and formulated then and there the first draft of what later became known as the Aldrich bill.
The Jekyll Island meeting was remarkable for several reasons:
Not only was the meeting not make public, Senator Aldrich did not even share that such a meeting took place with members of his Federal Monetary Commission.
A. Piatt Andrew was serving as the assistant secretary of the treasury, and his participation at the meeting was not disclosed to his superior, the Secretary of the Treasury Franklin C. MacVeigh, a member of President Taft’s Cabinet and Administration.
That no one from Taft’s Administration was involved in the drafting of the banking reform bill was clearly unprecedented.
Far more serious from a constitutional standpoint is, while no one from the Taft Administration was involved, the key contributors to the draft banking reform bill included Wall Street ‘bankers’ who could benefit from the final content of the bill.
Senator Aldrich certainly understood the political risk he was taking in convening a secret meeting of Wall Street bankers. It’s been written, only Senator Aldrich’s conceit and contempt for the contribution of the members of the commission could have induced him to undertake such a daring and risky adventure.
The Aldrich Bill Drafted by Wall Street Bankers Moves Forward
Barely two months after the Jekyll Island secret meeting, Senator Aldrich submitted a plan for banking reform to the National Monetary Commission entitled “Suggested Plan for Monetary Legislation.” The pamphlet dated 16 January 1911 was not a bill in legislative format, but an outline of the structure of a new financial institution called the Reserve Association of America, whose objectives could be achieved “without the creation of such a central bank” as existed in Europe.
Senator Aldrich subsequently modified his “Suggested Plan…” in October 1911. The final report of his Federal Monetary Commission was sent to Congress in January 1912 along with a bill — the Aldrich Bill — introduced in the Senate at the same time.
Senator Aldrich’s original plan, the revised October version, and the formal 1912 bill were similar. A few important changes were made in each draft, but the substance remained unchanged. The name of the new institution was modified slightly from Reserve Association of America to National Reserve Association.
Bottom Line: The Aldrich Bill was the product of the secret Jekyll Island meeting of Wall Street bankers and not the product of the National Monetary Commission. Bankers with a vested interest in the bill language were able to exert unprecedented influence in creating a bank reform measure than they, or anyone else inside or outside of government could have imagined was possible.
The Jekyll Island Blueprint for the Federal Reserve Transcends Presidential Administrations
From a political perspective, the Aldrich Plan was without a doubt a Republican proposal by a perceived Jeffersonian supporter for a central bank to address banking issues in the United States. However, the plan Senator Aldrich’s committee put forward called for a Hamiltonian central bank that instead of being called a bank, was named the National Reserve Association, with 15 branches located in major cities around the country, but subject to direction from the New York branch. The National Reserve Association did not issue currency fully-backed by gold but Fiat commercial paper17, and would hold the federal government’s deposits.
Note 17: Fiat commercial paper is a type of currency that is not backed by a specie — metallic money in all of its forms, gold or silver traditionally, but including nickel and copper — or backed by any other tangible asset or commodity. A greater understanding of Fiat commercial paper and the fractional banking practice is key to understanding the U.S. monetary system.
First published in 1912 by author Alfred Owen Crozier
The Aldrich Bill was to those who didn’t know how it was drafted, perceived to solve banking issues and prevent another banking panic. The plan was condemned by Democratic progressives like former Nebraska Congressman and Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who wanted a central bank under public control, not a privately-controlled corporation with bankers pulling the levers of interest rates and U.S. money supply using Fiat currency created by fractional-banking practices — creating money out of thin air to generate a stream of ongoing interest payments to banks — that historically have brought about financial collapse over thousands of years in monetary history, but that had the appearance of being a federally-controlled entity. The Democratic Party backing Bryan, opposed the plan in its 1912 election campaign platform, and won the 1912 election with Woodrow Wilson as President, seemingly killing the Aldrich Plan.
However, many of the same key features in the Aldrich Plan were incorporated into the The Federal Reserve Act that was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on 13 December 1913, establishing the Federal Reserve System as the central banking system of the United States… or as it was named by G. Edward Griffin the author of, “A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’“.
A very detailed, interesting read that had a title to suggest Jekyll Island played a key role in the formation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that is, once again, more happenstance than substance. The group of economists and bankers who gathered for a ‘duck hunt’ at Jekyll Island in November 1910, could have done as much to change the course of U.S. banking history at any other place that offered sufficient seclusion from the American public and the current Republican Taft Administration, never-mind being embraced by the subsequent Democratic Wilson Administration and passed into law.
The End of the Club Era
A Destiny Shaped by Generational Differences & a Failure to Adapt
I my view, the beginning of the end for the Jekyll Island Club is rooted in its founding members and their wives having been born between the 1820’s and 1850’s during the Victorian Era, who came into their wealth during the Civil War and Gilded Age: a time of rapid economic growth where railroads were the major growth industry, with mining, oil, electricity, manufacturing and finance becoming far more important than agriculture and its related industries had been.
The majority of this expansion was occurring in the Northern and Western United States, with the center of finance and business firmly ensconced in New York City and, to a lesser degree, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. Moreover, half of all of the 53 founding members of the Jekyll Island Club came from the ranks of the Union Club in New York with it’s exclusive membership capped at 400 men of distinction. The others came from other exclusive, high-end social clubs in major business cities to whom Newton Finney and Oliver King sent invitations.
As a group, these wealthy Gilded Age businessmen and professionals were of like mind in regard to religion, politics, business and other norms and habits with perhaps one exception who Finney reached-out to and even sold his own shares to secure his membership in the Club: Joseph Pulitzer, whom the Jekyll Island Museum even coined ‘Enigma of the Island’ on the historic marker for where his cottage once stood.
This centralization of generation, culture and economic standing was a major factor in what helped to create the unique, relatively relaxed nature of the Jekyll Island Club when the members arrived for its first season in January 1888. Most knew each through personal, social or business relationships and immediately found the tone to be very unlike other places they’d been such as Newport Rhode Island with it’s somewhat pretentious, see-and-be-seen one-upmanship for which there was no need: the pecking order was already known.
Of course, to many today, seeing how Club members, their wives, children and guests dressed for an afternoon tea on the lawn, lunch at the beach or a dinner and the like would hardly seem ‘relaxed‘ given how much has changed over the past 135-years. Again, these were all successful adults who grew up in the Victorian Age and shared many of the same norms, habits and expectations.
Added to that, there was a sameness about the Club they found upon arriving season after season, such as the now popular, North American version of Queen Anne architecture with unpretentious stick-built and single-style early cottages. There were also the beloved members of the Club staff who they came to know such as Ernest Grob with his personal soft touch and manner who managed the hotel like a large country estate club, as well as Captain Clark and future wife and the Club’s head housekeeper Minnie Schuppan, Grob’s assistant Julius Falk and many of the other staff who remained at the Club through the 1930s and were like extended family to many of the members, yet always knew their place.
By the end of World War I, there were two forces at play that began to bring about unwanted change at the Jekyll Island Club: the passing of time was gradually taking the Victorian Era members, and the introduction of younger members raised during the Progressive Era, many of whom inherited their wealth.
More specifically, while several founding members died in 1911-1912, it was in 1913 when the Club lost two key members: 76-year-old J.P. Morgan died on 31 March while vacationing in Rome, and on 15 June, long-time Treasurer of the Club, 83-year-old Frederic Baker died at his home that sat across from Central Park on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.
A year later, the Baker’s home Solterra — the fifth cottage built on the island 23 years ago that had been such a central part of Club social events and where President McKinley stayed in March 1913 while the Bakers were on holiday in Europe — burned to the ground, a victim of a faulty flue that started a fire in the attic. Although Baker’s widow, Frances, early-on said she’d rebuild, she ended-up selling her lots to Richard T. Crane, Jr. for an undisclosed amount. Crane — born in 1873 and whose father had created a fortune in the plumbing trades during the Gilded Age that he inherited in 1912 — had joined the club at the age of 38 in 1911.
The Cranes went on to build the largest, most expensive and most-out-of-character cottage on Jekyll next to where Solterra once stood, what some of the older Club members and their wives characterized either pretentious or the trappings of the nouveau riche and ‘something that could, “contribute to the destruction of what may be the greatest charm [of the Club], this atmosphere of simplicity.” A changing of the guard, whether welcomed or not, was beginning to take place at Jekyll where, for the past 30-years, things had remained relatively unchanged, aside from new construction of simple new homes that showed restrained, Victorian Era styles and tastes.
By the end of World War I, after erasing a 5-year, $92,000 $1,875,270 in 2023 $’s debt through subscription by Club members, the Club had one of it’s rare years where it booked a profit…. of $8,000 $163,067 in 2023 $’s . However, that good news had to be tempered by still further losses of founding members including the death of the Club president, 68-year-old Frederick Bourne, Vice President and 60-year-old George Macy, 78-year-old James A. Scrymser, 67-year-old James Stillman and Frances Baker between January 1918 and December 1919. In fact, by the end of 1920, membership had dropped to sixty-eight —including four memberships now owned by the estates of their late Club members — due not only to the demise of aging members, but to the lack of new members attracted to the growing appeal of new resorts in Florida and renewed access to the great spas of Europe.
John Claflin in his 30’s and at 88
By 1920, all but five of the original 53 founding members of the Club had died. These were the original, wealthy Gilded Age entrepreneurs who brought Jekyll Island its fame, several of whom were instrumental in the early development and management of the club.
One of the five — Edmund Hayes — resigned at the age of 72 in 1921, and died two-years later at the age of 74 in 1923. Three others died during the 1920s: William Rockefeller in 1922 at the age of 81, Charles Maurice in 1924 at the age of 84, and McEvers Brown18 in 1926 at the age of 74. The fifth was one of the youngest of the founding members, John Claflin19 who was 36 when the Club was founded in 1886 and passed at the age of 88 on 11 June 1938.
Note 18: McEvers Brown, as noted earlier, was a New York banker who became a recluse and left the country in 1988 after commissioning the construction of the first ‘cottage’ on Jekyll Island. The so-called Brown Cottage was completed in 1988, with Brown never having lived-in nor seeing the finished cottage during the remaining 37-years of his life that he spent living outside the United States.
Note 19: Founding member John Claflin — who had helped John Eugene DuBignon acquire the island so he could sell it to the Club — had been forced to drop his membership in 1912 due to financial hardships. However, he was able to recover financially and rejoined the Club in 1921 and acquired Henry K.Porter’s Mistletoe Cottage in 1924.
After Dr. Walter B. James joined the Club at the age of 59 in 1917 and became Club president in 1919, Club membership had something of a resurgence during his tenure as what some have coined as the Club’s Golden Years. Coincidentally, while there were quite a few families on Jekyll that had become interrelated over the years through marriages and the like, Dr. James’ extended family was by-far the largest and most complex.
By the time Dr. James died in 1927 while still president of the Club, membership had climbed back into the 90s and even touched 100 briefly in 1927, creating a waiting list for the first time in Club history. It was also during the 1930’s when, in an effort to make the Club more attractive to potential new but also younger Club members with younger children installed a swimming pool in 1927, introduced the gasoline-powered and later more quiet and clean-running electric-powered ‘Red Bugs’ and greatly expanded both the sport of tennis and golf with new facilities. Although Kate Allerton Papin became the first female member of the Club in 1893 when she inherited and the wealthy of her father, Samuel Waters Allerton, a banker and the third wealthiest man in Chicago who died the same year he became a member. By the 1920’s, eight of what would eventually be thirty-one, stock-holding female members, were members of the Club.
It was during this time when the great front lawn of the Clubhouse — now renown for it’s croquet court –– was occupied by a a fenced-in pair of tennis courts, as lawn tennis and then hard-court tennis was becoming popular on the island along with golf. It was also by this time that the popular indoor tennis court built by Edwin Gould in 1913 and freely used by club members was curtailed as Edwin Gould began to withdraw from the Club following the accidental hunting death of his son Eddie n 1917.
Again, the coming of tennis was a sign-of-the times with the new, younger members, and by the 1930’s there was a large outdoor as well as indoor tennis complex behind the San Souci apartments named in honor of J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr., as well as the expanded 9-hole Karl Keffer Oceanside course, when Walter Travis added a back-nine holes south of Shell Road to create the 18-hole Great Dunes golf course along the ocean with the relocated Tee House where motion-picture movies were shown near the end /Shell Road and close to where Tortuga Jack’s restaurant is today.
The 10th Tee at the Tee HouseThe Back-9 Looking North back at the Tee House
A brief overview of the Jekyll Island Club Era Golf Courses
When the club opened, neither the original 1898 9-hole ‘Riverside’ golf course located northwest of the Club Compound and on what is now the northwest end of the current airport which was never exceptional in its day was let to go, nor the 4th and final course established in the Club Era — the formerly exceptional ‘Great Dunes’ — course which is still being readied for play were open. It wasn’t until October 1948 when the front nine-holes at the Great Dunes golf course were finally rid of the destructive wild boar and there were sufficient funds to repair the greens. The back nine-holes were never re-opened as beach erosion had made it economically unfeasible: it was eventually before the end of 1954. The use of all the amenities to include rounds of golf was initially at no cost to state park visitors, with green fees being introduced once a full-time golf-pro was hired.
The Pre-State Era Golf Courses of the Jekyll Island Club Era
After Dr. James died at the age of 69 shortly after he return home from the 1927 season on 6 April, he was replaced by his brother-in-law, Walter Jennings who also at 69-years-of-age, was from the old school. One of Jennings his first official acts was to increase the annual dues from $600 $10,613 in 2023 $’s to $700 $12,382 in 2023 $’s per year, in an effort to share the financial burdens of the Club instead of relying on the generous gifts still granted by the few remaining, older members.
Jennings also decided to build what would be the first new cottage in a decade, Villa Opso in a more contemporary Mediterranean style and, while not inexpensive at $50,000 $884,451 in 2023 $’s, it was not ostentatious. A year later, and also in the spirit of optimism, Edwin Gould’s surviving son Frank Miller Gould who never lost his love of Jekyll and continued to visit after his brother’s tragic hunting accident, also decided at the age of 51– 5-years younger than Crane, but having grown-up visiting Jekyll Island in the late 1800’s — built his understated and more modest $29,000 $497,520 in 2023 $’s Villa Marianna, which would ultimately be the last cottage built during the Jekyll Island Club Era.
1929 Becomes a Watershed Year for the Jekyll Island Club
Some like to point to the coincidence that on 31 July 1929, after members of the Jekyl Island Club discovered the island named for Sr. Joseph Jekyll in 1734 had been mis-spelled, a group of Club members led by Walter Jennings petitioned the Georgia legislature to officially correct the 195-year-old error which they subsequently did.
As a recap, due to various cultural habits and language barriers even within the English language, particularly when it came to spelling things — phonetic spellings were often used when the actual spellings were not readily available or known — the island was identified in the legislation offered by Oglethorpe as ‘Jekyl’ instead of Jekyll. In fact, maps can be found with a variety of different spellings for the islands along Georgia’s Barrier Islands, such as this one from 1771 with St. Simon, Jekil Sound and Jekil Island. Note that the original name for which St. Simons island was named was San Simon, taken from a Yamassee Village established near Fort Frederica. San Simon was anglicized as both Saint Simon and Saint Simons early-on.
After the subsequent stock market crash on Black Thursday, 24 October 1929 — with the resulting economic turmoil and Great Depression of the 1930’s that put an end to the Roaring Twenties and America’s post World War I national prosperity –– at some point an urban proverb purportedly developed in Brunswick, Georgia, to wit, “They doubled the L, and they all went to hell.” The latter was was commonly believed the impact it had the members of the Jekyll Island Club and the Club itself, brought about its demise.
Whether it truly was or not, can be debated. Again, I my view the Club was already reaching a tipping-point in it’s future outlook for the reasons I offered: (A) the aging-out of the core members of the Club and, (B) the alternatives available to the young heirs and nouveau riche of the second Industrial Revolution, such as the nearby Cloisters on Sea Island and Florida resorts.
It was also in 1930 when the loss of older members who treasured the original, simpler life at the Club was exacerbated by the sudden retirement in March of now 69-year old, long-time Club superintendent Ernest Grob in 1930. It was later that year in the off-season when now 70-year old Capt. James Clark — and it can be assumed his wife and former head housekeeper 68-year old Minnie — as well as Grob’s assistant J.C. Etter also retired following other changes in the management staffing of the club.
To that end, the 1929 and 1930 seasons at Jekyll were not much different that in previous years, with the most well-to-do members looking for ways to be generous benefactors to their beloved club. One already mentioned earlier was Frank Goodyear, Jr’s donation of the Furness Cottage bought from John Albright who had indeed suffered financially from the Stock Market Crash, that Goodyear relocated and converted into a much-needed Club Infirmary for the island and the like.
But, while the most wealthy and diversified families weathered the storm, it is true that the younger and less diversified members were clearly impacted by the bank failures and stagnant economy. As they looked for ways to conserve funds and reduce non-essential expenses, their Club memberships and associated costs were high on those lists of luxury items they could do without.
As a result, while Club membership was still near its all-time high at ninety-seven in January 1931 when the club opened for the season, attendance declined as inflation drove-up the cost to operate the Club and membership fell by 27% to seventy-one in 1932 with only three new members, two of whom were widows with prior club connections. It was 1933 when Club President Walter Jennings died suddenly on 9 January, following an automobile accident on Jekyll Island on 4 January. The fall in membership continued into the following years with membership falling to sixty-four in 1933, to fifty-four in 1934.
A Lot More Change Pushed the Club to the Tipping Point
Grob’s replacement was a very different type of personality as a business-like Michael L. De Zutter had been hired. In that respect, all the changes in staff who had been with the Club throughout the past 42 years who sustained the relaxed ‘country house’ feel of the Club, things were definitely no longer the same
Even replacing Walter Jennings with the well-known and popular J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr. in 1933 who refinanced the Club with a new $500,000 $11,838,038 in 2023 $’s mortgage in 1934 and instituted a major change in the Club’s constitution. In addition to the introduction of a revised class of re-issued stock-owning ‘Founding Members’ who continued to pay $700 per year in dues, was a new Associate Member class of membership that was far more affordable at just $150 per year as a way of stemming the loss of membership.
The 1930’s & Yet More Changes
The cultural and generational differences in the long-time, Founding Members of the Club and the Associate Members became obvious.
Many non-members were quick to take advantage of the Associate Memberships with sixty–nine new sign-ups by March 1934.
Four 4 stock-owning, Founding Members resigned and rejoined as Associate Members.
Associate Members were not initially eligible to vote in Club matters or occupy seats on the board of governors, but by 8 May 1935 and given they now outnumbered Founding Members: five were elected to seats on the board.
By 1935, women now comprised 25% of the Founding Member class, owned seven of the thirteen remaining cottages and were the chairs on six of the twelve executive committees.
By 1936, Founding Members numbered less than fifty, while Associate Members numbered ninety.
A partnership with Alfred “Bill” Jones who owned the Cloisters on Sea Island was established whereby the Cloisters assisted in the upkeep of the Jekyll Island Club and allowed Club members to use their Cabin Bluff hunting preserve, as Jones saw Jekyll’s continues success to be in the best interest of his Cloisters.
JP Morgan Jr. & Prentice, 1938
The Club president, J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr., did not come to the Club for the 1937 season and tendered his resignation on 25 February 1938, and on 11 June the last remaining Founding Member of the Club, John Claflin, died.
Fifty-five year-old stock-broker, world renown tennis champion and former American Davis Cup Committee Chairman, Bernon Sheldon Prentice was elected as Club president in 1938 and, for the first time in Club history, began to publicly promote and market the Club via press releases made on the Club’s behalf by the Sea Island press office and hosted a series of golf, tennis and lawn bowling tournaments.
Still not being sufficient, in 1940 Prentice extended an on-going island timbering contract with the American Creosoting Company which had originally been established by J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr. in the 1930s as a temporary stop-gap source of revenue for the Club.
The 1941 season, as related by Marian Maurice who, along with her sister Margaret, had been coming to the island and staying at their family’s Hollybourne Cottage for 52-years, arrived on 4 January. Having heard about the lumbering contract but not yet investigated, she noted all around her she saw change and destruction. It so happened her arrival was on the same day the former Gould Cottage Chichota — having been conveyed to the Club by Gould’s estate after Edwin Gould’s death on 12 July 1933 — was razed with only the two Corinthian lions on the concrete steps, pool and concrete surround remaining. It was a bitter-sweet reminder of the once grand, one-story cottage that the Club’s most committed member had owned and the many memories — happy and sad — that were associated with it and the rest of the Gould Compound.
While the Club continued to cater to the younger members and their young families, providing a wide variety of recreational activities for the Associate Members and their guests who now dominated the Club such as golf, tennis, skeet shooting, law bowling, movies, swimming, hunting, speed boat and red bug races with the largest-sized staff in Club history, it was all foreign to the long-time, nineteen-remaining Founding Club members.
The Club was no longer a simple place where the club members could relax in a tranquil, comfortable and uncomplicated place surrounded by well-known friends, with the well-known extended-family of the Club’s staff who readily knew everyone’s needs and preferences and where everyone had a long-term stake in the Club’s success given that is where they spent their winters. To the old guard, it felt more like a typical country club or resort filled with visitors who were unknown to each other and would remain that way since they came to be entertained for a short-period of time: no one was there to form relationships or make a commitment to build something of value.
With the U.S. entry into World War II on 8 December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Club had a strained and shortened 1942 season — plagued with transportation issues, shortages of fuel, staffing issues as many of the club employees entered military service — also ended-up being the last season. It like came as no surprise to the Maurice sisters to whom it had been suggested in early March by Bernon Prentice’s wife while having tea that they make arrangements to pack-up the more important, sentimental and valuable things at Hollybourne and have them shipped home to Athens, Pennsylvania vs. just preparing for a long and quiet off-season ahead of next year’s return. Generally speaking, after the club closed in 1942, Jekyll Island had a crew of caretakers who looked after the cottages, club house other structures and grounds.
Three days after the club had closed and the last members had left for other homes, the German U-Boat U-123 commanded by Lt. Commander Reinhard Hardegen which had been prowling the coast of Georgia’s barrier islands and torpedoed two oil tankers anchored off St. Simons island to the north of Jekyll, the Oklahoma and the Esso Baton Rouge on 8 April and on the following morning sunk the freighter, the SS Esparta off Cumberland, Island to the south of Jekyll, all told taking the lives of 23 crewmen.
The state of Georgia and its citizens was caught off-guard and quickly thrust into the realities of modern warfare as it was thought to be an unlikely target with numerous military bases nearby, its barrier islands, shallow waters. However, that in some respects made it a tempting target since there was poorly protected war-time cargo shipping with sparse anti-submarine patrols and coastal communities ignored blackout orders.
During the War
U.S. Coast Guardsmen and U.S. Army soldiers were stationed on the island to patrol the island day and night throughout the war scanning the horizon for German U-boats from the beaches. By this time, all but two cottages — Hollybourne and Villa Marianna — had been conveyed to the Jekyll Island Club Corporation, the last being Villa Ospo that was deeded-over on 28 May 1942 after the club had been closed for the season on Easter.
Overhead, airships stationed at the Naval Air Station Glynco, Georgia, 10-miles North-Northwest of Jekyll Island established to support the U.S. Navy Airships would scan the seas for submarines as well. In 1975 the Naval Station became the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Army personnel stationed on Jekyll were quartered in the staff boarding house annex, later at the golf course tee house and took their meals in the Club staff dining hall, patrolled the island’s beach front and manned an observation tower near Shell Road and the beach throughout the war. Coast Guard ships were deployed to the Barrier Island for submarine patrol-duty and the Coast Guard also erected and built and staffed an observation tower on the island.
There were false alarms during the war when, for example, a Coast Guardsman reported seeing tank tracks on the beach. Fears about a potential tank were put to rest when the island caretaker explained that they were ‘flipper trails’ from a Loggerhead Turtle who had come ashore to lay eggs and showed the Coast Guard the egg next where the tracks reached the dunes.
After the War
Upon returning to the island after the war, the island and Club bore little resemblance to how it looked on Easter 1942 when it closed for the season. Bill Jones of the Sea Island Company offered to assist still Club president Bernon Prentice with the management of Jekyll Island as he had already been doing before the Club shut down. However, with the accumulation of unpaid membership, interest on loans and mortgages as well as taxes in arrears the Club is in dire financial straits that seem insurmountable in light of how much work would be required to maintain, never mind re-open the club after the war.
Overgrown Clubhouse Entrance Drive and Tennis Courts on Front LawnHollybourne Overgrown Pulitzer / Albright Cottage Overgrown
The Club Era Ends as the State Condemns the Island
After the war, Bill Jones had his Sea Island Company president, J.D. Compton prepare a business case for acquiring the island and building a new, smaller resort like the Cloisters on Jekyll Island, with it’s unique ten mile Atlantic coastline of unspoiled, white sand beaches and rehabilitating the more important and useful structures and cottages.
However, the largest barrier to making Jekyll Island a cost-effective and successful resort destination is logistics: a causeway and bridge need to be built between it and Brunswick so that vehicles can easily move between the mainland and the island vs. via ferry or barges across the channels and rivers at either end of the island. The initial cost estimate is $130,000 $2,222,920 in 2023 $’s, not including the causeway construction and the only Club member who could have afforded to either loan or cover the expense was Frank Gould, who suddenly died from a ruptured aorta at 46-years-of-age on 14 January 1945. The business case was therefore deemed unprofitable and shelved.
It’s noteworthy that prior to Frank Gould’s death, he had already been in discussions with Bernon Prentice and Bill Jones who had started the process of acquiring the Jekyll Island Club Corporation’s outstanding $185,000 ~$2,980,634 in 2023 $’s bonds at 10% of face value, intending to build a causeway to the island and operate the club as a resort like the Cloister. His new wife, Helen, considered taking on the project with her lawyer Lawrence Condon, Prentice and Jones. In fact, Condon and Jones became members of the Jekyll Island Club in 1946 as a result of their ownership of the bonds. However, the State of Georgia became involved in 1946, stepped away and then moved forward with condemnation proceedings and acquired the island in 1947 through the eminent domain process for $675,000 $9,223,047 in 2023 $’s using funds from the Georgia teachers’ retirement account and designated it a State Park. A subject for another day.
By the time Georgia had acquired the island in 1947, quite an extensive networks of high-quality roads, bicycle & bridle paths and several golf courses, a grass airfield, a dairy outside the Club compound on the still mostly undeveloped island. Within the 240-acre Club Compound now called the Historic District were all of the Club’s clubhouse, hotel, apartment buildings, support buildings, staff dormitories and over 30 small homes built for married staff members with families, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an electric power-generation plant, water & sewer systems and 14 Club member cottages. Jekyll was still a true island accessible only by water from Brunswick, a one-hour to 45-minute ferry trip on the Turtle and Jekyll Rivers to the Club’s wharf and pier on the west side of the island, across from Latham Hammock.
Roads & Paths 1886 vs 1942: Red = Bicycle Path, Blue = Bridle Path
Club Membership was a Luxury Expense, not an Investment
Point of fact, much of the success of the Club’s growth was due to the wealth and generosity of both its founding Club members and executive committee members. They would often times either give personal loans to the club, make outright donations, or in the case of Frederic Baker by personally covering the annual operating deficits. The subscription process was also used to support many of the Club’s developments and activities that were not otherwise included in the basic Club membership.
This was all above and beyond their initial investment in shares, annual dues — originally $100 per year $3,250 in 2023 $’s, raised to $300 per year $10,850 in 2023 $’sin 1901, $500 a year $16,200in 2023 $’s by 1910 and eventually $700 per year $16,500in 2023 $’sin 1933 — and on-going expenses for room & board as well as property taxes for the members who built and/or acquired land and cottages on the island. Individual shares had increased in cost from $600 ~$19,500/share in 2023 $’s when first founded in 1886 to $2,000 $64,797/share in 2023 $’s by 1910. Despite the annual dues, subscription fees, outright donations and interest-free loans made to the Club, it typically ran an operating deficit each season.
As the original members ‘aged-out’ and dropped their membership or died, by the early 1920’s only five of the original fifty-three members remained. However, in spite of the imposition of personal income tax in 1913, numerous bank and stock market crises, the New York Stock Market Crash in October 1929 and subsequent Great Depression, membership hit 100 as late as 1931, but then immediately began to decline and was down 34% with just 64 members in 1933, putting financial strains on the Club. In fact, by the end of 1931, the impact of falling membership and fewer members visiting the Club created an annual deficit of -$28,000 – $561,293 in 2023 $’sthat once again had to be absorbed by the members.
J.P. “Jack” Morgan Jr. became the Club President in 1933 and, in addition to mortgaging the Club by re-issuing new stock to the shareholding ‘Founder’ membership class to secure a $500,000 $11,719,314 in 2023 $’s mortgage loan to sustain its operation,’ the executive committee created an Associate Member class to attract younger, more active members with a much lower, $125 $2,929 in 2023 $’s annual membership fee vs. the founder level’s $700$16,407 in 2023 $’s annual membership fee to some success.
After the Club re-opened in January as it had for many years, it closed early and for what would be the last time on 5 April 1942. It was a season plagued by war-time driven shortages, higher costs and staffing issues as many of the Club employees entered military service. After the Club closed in 1942, Jekyll Island had a crew of caretakers who looked after the cottages and Clubhouse, some of whom were the Club’s black employees who lived year-round on Red Row.
As noted earlier, it was in 1946 when Jekyll Island was placed under the oversight of the Sea Island Company and then acquired through the condemnation and eminent domain process for $675,000 $9,316,483 in 2023 $’s by the State of Georgia in 1947 vs its appraised value of $850,000$11,731,867 in 2023 $’s.
Less back-taxes owed by the Club, a net total of $153,353 $2,116,608 in 2023 $’swas paid to the Club for distribution to the remaining stockholding members. The two members who still held the titles to their cottages were Lawrence Condon who received $60,000 $828,131 in 2023 $’s for Villa Marianna which in 2023 dollar cost $521,981 to build in 1928 and Margaret Maurice who received $20,000 $276,043 in 2023 $’s for Hollybourne which in 2023 dollars cost $608,813 to build in 1890. The final distribution of proceeds to each of the nine remaining Club members was $10,590$146,165in 2023 $’s.
Again, like most luxury expenses, they were the stuff of disposable income and not an investment that would ever yield a return. M.E. Thompson’s detractors and, and in particular Eugene Talmadge, accused him of making a sketchy deal with wealthy Northerners eager to get rid of a “white elephant” and went on to nickname Jekyll Island “Thompson’s Folly.”
For those who have never heard of nor seen a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, there is an excellent, detailed “article “hosted on the Library of Congress’ researcher Geography and Map Reading Room entitled “Introduction to the Sanborn Map Collection”. It outlines their history, purpose as well as the history of the company and provides insight into the legends used on the map and how to properly use the ‘fire insurance’ maps from the collection that can also be found in other educational and state government archives.
Like most major counties and cities in Georgia, Glynn County and Brunswick Georgia enlisted the Sanborn Map Company to prepare a series of fire insurance maps beginning in the late 1800’s. It would appear Jekyl Island’s key structures were included in the Sanford surveys conducted and published for the City of Brunswick as it was the county-seat of Glynn County and likely had jurisdiction over the island due to proximity and to which it was host to the primary ferry service for the island.
In my searches, I was able to locate on-line, scanned Images of four of the five Maps produced for the City of Brunswick that included some of the structures on Jekyll Island for the years 1893, 1898, 1908 and 1920. There is a fifth that was apparently produced for 1930, but images of it are no longer visible on-line through any of the available resources that I’ve discovered.
However, a facsimile was produced by someone that is included in William and June McCash’s book The Jekyll Island Club and also cataloged at Wikipedia that I’ve included, at right. However, as you’ll see below, the actual maps are far more detailed in many respects, while still omitting a lot of information on structures that were likely not of concern to the insurance companies or the cities that had to support fire services to insurance subscribers.
The Evolution of the Jekyll Island Historic District from 1893 to 1930 based on Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
The following is a collection of original images, many of which I’ve annotated to make them easier to understand and have also added additional legends and notations regarding omissions such as the Brown and Furness Cottages, and changes since the 1930 map was produced, e.g., the loss of the Chichota, Fairbank and Pulitzer cottages. Most importantly, I’ve created a composite image of the Historic District to illustrate proper alignment of the 1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map’s insets for the five (5) club member cottages located on the South end of the Historic District, as well as the club’s ‘colored servant district’ also know as ‘Red Row’ that was located at the North end of the Historic District. The latter is the key to putting the original layout of the Jekyl Island Club structures in their correct placement at the time the Sanborn Map Company based in New York performed the four survey map sets I was able to locate.
April 1893:The first survey map from April 1893 was published eight-years after the founding of the Jekyl Island Club in December 1885 and construction of the clubhouse and several other primary structures. It clearly illustrates the close-in clubhouse district with the original, much smaller clubhouse and only shows two of the six club member cottages — the McKay and Fairbank Cottages– that had been built by the end of 1892. To the south of the clubhouse it also shows the 1884 DuBignon house in it’s original location, prior to being relocated in 1896 to allow for the construction of the San Souci apartments. The Brown Cottage located northwest of the clubhouse and main club compound area nor the Soltera, Hollyborne or the Furness Cottages and other structures that — and this is only a guess — were neither insured nor close enough to insured properties to warrant inclusion in the survey map set for Brunswick.
The lower-right of the drawing reflects what appears to be the produce gardens & club-owned structures to the southeast of the clubhouse, to include two dwellings (C2) as well as what are shown as the club stables. It may be that these are the original stables — something I still need to investigate — as new stables further to the east of the club compound were built in 1897.
July 1898:The relocation of the DuBignon house to allow for the construction of the San Souci apartments is reflected in the July 1898 survey map, along with the 1896 expansion of the clubhouse dining room on the north end of the building with its curved end wall, and the 1896 addition of the standalone billiard room connected by covered porches, as well as the 1896 addition of the San Souci apartments. As before, what are now seven club member cottages located to the north and south of the clubhouse district were omitted from the map with only the McKay and Fairbanks Cottages reflected in the survey map set for Brunswick.
Billiard Room Building at RightRounded Dining Room AdditionSan Souci Apartments
As in the 1893 survey, lower-right of the drawing reflects what appears to be the produce gardens & club-owned structures to the southeast of the clubhouse, to include two dwellings (C2). However, by this time the new stables were likely completed and the original stables had been removed.
June 1908: This map was published by which time the Club’s1901 addition of the clubhouse annex and its eight apartments beyond the billiard room with additional rooms and attic servants quarters above them as well as further additions to the dining areas on the north side of the clubhouse. Also by this time, the Fairbanks was now listed as the Ferguson Cottage, McKay was now the Rockefeller Cottage and the Porter and Goodyear Cottages were now included. Once again, none of the cottages or even the Faith Chapel built in 1904 and located to the north of the club compound were included.An inset drawing of the dynamo / power house and coal shed that was added to provide electricity to the club is also shown.
The addition of the club-owned home provided for Captain Clark & his wife and head Club housekeeper Minnie Schuppan is shown,. However, only four of the twelve club member cottages are included on this image of the map, with Moss, Furness and Pulitzer missing to the south, and the Brown, Hollybourne, Chichota, Solterra as well as Faith Chapel and the Gould Casino are missing to the north. There is also no reference to the “Red Row” collection of housing for the club’s colored employees.
Once again, there are two club dwellings (C2) south of the produce gardens in the lower-right of the drawing. The new club powerhouse / dynamo and coal storage shed are at the top of the drawing shown as an inset as they are actually located further east than the right-hand edge of the drawing. Unlike the 1893 drawing, a club stable is no longer shown. The Brown stables are partially shown in the very upper right of the drawing, next to the sheet number 39.
Also includes for the first time south of the Goodyear Cottage are the Macy Cottage as well as the Albright (Pulitzer) Cottage with its additions and the former Furness Cottage used for servants quarters.
The north side of the club compound now includes the Faith Chapel and original Gould Amusement House, aka. casino, at the southwest corner of the more recently completed indoor tennis courts.
It is noted, by this time Solterra had been destroyed by fire in 1915 and replaced by the Crane Cottage in 1918. This was well before the Jennings Villa Ospo Cottage and Frank Gould’s Villa Marianna Cottage were built.
However, most noteworthy is the inclusion of the ‘Red Row’ community shown on the upper right corner of the map as an inset that must be re-aligned to the north end of the map; note the “38” map keys I’ve highlighted with pentagon icons.
Red Row was created to house the club’s colored employees, noting segregation was still a normal part of life in the South until 1964.
The name of the community came from the red Barrett’s Roofing Felt material that covered the roof and exterior of the homes.
If it stood today, the community that was vacated in 1947 would sit southeast of the 1972 amphitheater and Jekyll Island Authority nursery off of Stable Road. The last remaining Red Row house that served as a toolshed for the JIA was razed in the 1970’s.
The Red Row community included the ‘Negro Boarding’ / caddie’s house in its correct location. Nine of the ten single family homes that were built — No. 7 is gone, likely burned-down at some point — the commissary, recreation hall and the relocated Union Chapel that was replaced by the Faith Chapel in 1904, shortly after Red Row was established.
The two club-owned dwellings (C2) that were previously located south of the Club’s produce gardens that are now gone have been relocated and re-oriented to sit along Pier Road; the smaller dwelling labelled ‘Carpenter’ was at one time the boat engineers house and the larger, two-story dwelling labelled “Dormitory” was at one time the chauffeurs dormitory. Also included as an inset was the Club’s second of three boat houses, located along the marsh well-south of the Club’s wharf where only the concrete piers in the marsh as well as the cast iron wheel from the pulley house remain near the northern end of the bicycle path bridge leading to the historic district.
I’ve been able to find reference to the 1930 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map set for Brunswick, Georgia, as being available in “B&W Microfilm Only” instead of a scanned color-image set that would have included a sheet on Jekyll Island. However, in comparing a ‘cleaned-up version that was the basis for landscape architect Clermont Huger Lee’s Historic District restoration project in the 1960’s and more specifically, a landscape plan, I found it to be generally consistent, aside from being depicted ‘aligned ‘east up’ instead of ‘north’ as all of Sanborn’s maps were, and it is a relatively complete accounting of the club-owned structures and club member cottages in the Historic District proper.
However, Ms Lee may not have fully understood how the Sanborn’s maps used ‘insets’ with numbered alignment icons for parts of their survey that would not fit on a single page, and required readers to understand how to interpret the inserts once they were aligned with the central survey.
Ms. Lee’s restoration plan master drawing one-time appeared on the Jekyll Island Museum’s historical information kiosks entitled, ‘A Winter City’ located in front of the former Chauffeur’s dorm building at 17 Pier Road, that has since been changed.
However, it was doing further research when I discovered the map’s creator was Ms Clermont Huger Lee, who was instrumental in developing the master plan for the island in the latter part of the 1960s as part of a larger project to restore the area once known as “Millionaire’s Village” to its original state. It was likely in 1966 when Horace Caldwell, director of the Jekyll Island Authority, hired Ms. Lee as part of a team tasked with developing a plan to restore the island’s Historic District that was completed in 1968, of which her preliminary landscape plan shown below was a part. You can read more about Ms. Lee in an article that first appeared in Spring/Summer 2024, Volume 7 Number 1 of 31•81, the Magazine of Jekyll Island at the Jekyll Island Website.
I believe Lee’s illustrated plan was based-in-part on the 1920 (or 1930?) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map(s) as it seems to try and match the position of the Sanborn’s Red Row inset instead of understanding how to align the inset and shows the Caddie Lodge just north of the stables instead of near current JIA Nursery. It’s otherwise a very accurate representation of the Historic District as best as I can tell, other than the Caddie Lodge location..
As noted earlier, an illustration of the Jekyl Island Club Compound & Outbuildings, aka,, the Historic District that also cites the 1930 Sanborn map as it’ source that can be found on Wikipedia and on page 185 in June McCash’s excellent ‘The Jekyll Island Club – Southern Haven for America’s Miillionaires’. It also shows the ‘Caddie Lodge‘ in the wrong location, that is unless for some inexplicable reason someone went to the expense of moving it. Again, my intuition tells me it was merely a mis-interpretation of how insets were used on the Sanborn maps.
1920 Survey Map Composite: The following is my composite illustration of the 1920 survey map with the insets shown in their actual locations, to the north and south of the main map. The only structure from the lower insetsnot shown in the composite is the club’s second of three boat houses, located even further to the south along the Jekyll River and to the east of the Pulitzer / Albright Cottage. It’s noteworthy that it is the third boat house built to actually house the Club’s 84-foot, 64-ton Jekyl Island yacht built in 1896 and acquired in 1901 that replaced the smaller, 1887 Howland yacht. The Jekyl Island remained the Club’s primary yacht used by Capt. James Clark to ferry the Club’s more important guests and visitors to and from the island until it closed in 1942.
The third and largest of the Jekyll Island Club’s boat houses was located further south from the Historic District so as not to block the view of the river from the cottages that sat to the south of the Clubhouse along River Road where only the concrete house piers and the foundation and iron pulley of the ‘wheel house winch’ still remain.
The Jekyll Island Wharf and the other docks and Boathouses along Jekyll CreekAdded 9 Oct 2025
The history behind the various boat landings and boathouses along Jekyll Creek is best told in pictures, which I’ve attempted to do below by stitching together various photographs taken over time along with both a portion of Clermont Huger Lee’s 1968 Preliminary landscape restoration plan for the Historic District, and a corresponding, current satellite image of the same area along the eastern shore of Jekyll Island at Jekyll Creek.
However, as a top-level timeline, the Jekyll Island pier and landing wharf inherited when the club acquired the island from John DuBignon quickly proved inadequate when construction of the clubhouse was underway in 1896 and 1897. As noted at the beginning of this section, the fixed pier and wharf had to be redesigned and rebuilt under the oversight of the clubhouse architect, Charles Alexander in 1887.
The resulting pier and wharf with it’s floating dock was utilitarian-looking vs. being finished in the more ornate victorian style used for the clubhouse. However, it provided structurally-sound and functionally sufficient to remain unchanged until 1916. Well, I say unchanged, the wharf and dock were damaged in the Hurricane of October 1898 and had to be repaired, but appears to have remained visually no different from the original 1887 design by Alexander.
As can be seen in the below photo at the upper left, by the time the first club steam yacht Howland was sold and replaced in 1901 by the 1896-built, 84-foot, 64-ton steam yacht Jekyl Island, the wharf and pier looked very much the same as it had before. However, by the early 1900’s a so-called boathouse — highlighted by the white arrows in the three other photos — had been built just south of the Jekyll Wharf at the south end of the Riverview Drive loop, just to the northwest of the McKay / Rockefeller’s Indian Mound Cottage. I say ‘so-called’ in that it did not appear to have the needed ramp or sit above the water such that it could have been used to house large, heavy craft that couldn’t be moved by animal-drawn carts.
I’ve not definitively discovered if the boathouse was built and owned by the club, or by Rockefeller who acquired the McKay Cottage in 1905 as it is referred to as both the club boathouse and as the Rockefeller boathouse in various mentions in books about Jekyll Island. The reference to Rockefeller’s boathouse came in regard to when he funded the construction of the $35,000 $1,013,600 in 2023 $’s bulkhead and seawall during the off-season summer of 1916 along the Jekyll Creek in front of his ‘Indian Mound‘ cottage — so named for the first time in February 1914 — that ran north to where the Edwin Gould ‘compound’ comprised of several lots he’d acquired from other club members began.
It’s noteworthy that after acquiring his Chicota cottage from David King in December 1900, Edwin Gould had his own, small landing wharf built in 1901 that was even longer than the club’s wharf with a small boathouse at the dock-end, and shown in the photos below.
Getting back to the construction of the seawall, the club’s boathouse had to be relocated further south along the shoreline and it was moved to a location just south of the former Pulitzer Cottage, acquired by John Albright in February 1914. What I believe is mistaken by some as the larger, ~100-foot long boathouse whose concrete piers and a capstan or windless winch pulley wheel used to a haul out on a cradle mounted on a inclined slipway ramp, half-of-which was inside the boat house can be found four-tenths of a mile south of the Jekyll Pier, the club boathouse after being relocated in 1916 can be seen three-tenths of a mile south of the Jekyll Pier, where the Sunlight is reflected off its roof in the middle photo, below.
My Attempt at Lifting the Fog Around the Jekyll Island Club’s Boathouse & Historic Site
I created the following, composite image to explain why I believe the boathouse shown in these two photos — the upper right, same image as from above — and a panoramic photo likely taken from a boat sitting just off the north end of the boathouse at it’s location just south of the Albright Cottage such that it would not block views of the Jekyll Creek from any of the club member cottages. The west-face of the Albright Cottage can be made-out to the east of the boathouse in this panoramic photo.
Black Frame: The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Note that a barge, likely the club-owned barge towed by the Jekyl Island is tied up to a small wharf on the north side of the boathouse that appears to have lampposts and two people on it.
The extent of the small wharf alongside the boathouse that extends out to the Jekyll Creek suggests that this one was truly a boathouse, likely with a rail system that allowed it to draw the smaller launches inside during the off-season.
Green Frame: The Albright Cottage ‘peeking through the trees’ and a standalone full image.
Orange Frame: The Jekyll Island Club’s iconic tower off in the distance
White Frame: What I suspect is a storage shed located south of the seawall and bulkhead that was present when the seawall was under construction and razed afterwards.
Going one step further, I’ve overlayed and annotated portion of Clermont Huger Lee’s 1968 Preliminary landscape restoration plan mentioned above with a current satellite image of the same area, noting Lee’s plan ended at the southwest corner of the historic district. The site of the club boathouse ruins is a 10th of a mile further south from there, or 0.07 tenths beyond where Lee’s 1968 map ends, just beyond the mouth of the tidal creek / canal at the threeway intersection of Riverside Drive and Stable Road. As before, I have annotated by composite map & satellite image infographic:
Dk. Green Frame: The Gould Wharf
Blue Frame: The Jekyll Island Club Wharf
Yellow Frame: Original location of the club / Rockefeller boathouse
Gold Frame:The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Lt. Green Frame: Location of the larger, ~100′-long club boat house, likely built for off-season storage or maintenance of the clubs’ Jekyl Island steam yacht.
For even some additional added context on what would have been a very large boat house, I’ve created two additional composites: the first is some photos of the Jekyll Island Club’s Boathouse ruins by Mike Stroud from a previous 31•81 article which do a great job of capturing where the likely the chain-based, tabby-foundation, windless system — a capstan winch uses only ropes — was used to pull the 64-ton Jekyl Island out of the water in its railway track-mounted boathouse saddle into the boathouse. Again, it’s only a supposition, but I believe the concrete pilings were poured to handle the weight of the boathouse, not to support the rail system that the saddle was mounted to as it brought the 84-foot long Jekyl Island yacht out of the water, which would have been true for the second boathouse used to store the larger launches.
Again, I’m somewhat surprised there are no scenic photographs, nevermind more detailed photographs of the Jekyll Island Clubs’ boathouses over the years, or even boathouse operations, i.e., pulling the Jekyl Island out of the Jekyll Creek with guides alongside on the wharf’s walkway that surely existed on the last of the boathouses as it did on the boathouse that was relocated just beyond the Albright Cottage in 2016.
That said, and lacking those pictures of the actual Jekyll Island Club boathouse, I decided to create one additional composite image of the very large, recently restored 180-foot long, 22-foot wide American Boathouse in Camden, Maine, that was built in 1904 for the 130-foot long sailing yacht of Chauncey Boreland, the first commodore of the Camden Yacht Club. It should be on par with what was still being built as boathouses in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as the technology — other than replacing oxen-powered capstan and windless pull-driven systems with steam, gasoline and electric motors — would have been about the same. As before, I have annotated by composite map & satellite image infographic:
Gold Frame:The relocated boathouse sitting 3/10th of a mile south of the club wharf, west of the Albright Cottage.
Lt. Green Frame: Location of the larger, 100′-long club boat house, likely built for the Jekyl Island club steam yacht.
White Dashed Line: The likely outline of the actual boathouse needed to house the 84-foot long, 64-ton Jekyl Island yacht.
Blue Short-Dashed Line: the likely outline of the rail track system on which the saddle that the Jekyl Island sat as it was pulled into the boathouse by the Windless winch system.
Orange Dotted Line: The likely outline of the pedestrian wharf platform used by crew members supporting the docking and winching-in of the Jekyl Island to the boathouse.
A side-by-side view of an 1868 map of Glynn County published by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office next to a current satellite image, annotated to show key landmarks.
Places Lost to History: For those interested, I decided to create an overlay of a current satellite view of Jekyll Island north of the Historic District that includes the location of the Banyard Brown Cottage — at what is now the south end of the Jekyll Island airport runway — as well as where “Red Row” was located just past the Fire Department on Stable Road and north of the intersection with James road, the 1897 Union Church relocated in 1903 to Red Row, the abandoned Jekyll Island Amphitheater — built in 1972 and closed in 2005 — the Skeet Range and both the 1898 and 1910 golf courses, based on the 1920 Sanborn Survey Map and other references.
The Brick Outlines in the Historic District: At some point a brick outline of the home was added by the Jekyll Island Authority in the post 1947 parking lot to the north of the DuBignon house to represent where the Fairbank Cottage and other long-since demolished structures were located.
The First Owners of the Club Apartments: The following is something I created based on two illustrations that were included in Anna Ruth Gatlin, Ph.D and Melissa Gatlin’s excellent ‘A Guide to the Historic Jekyll Island Club – Walking Tour of the Island’s Rich History and Architecture’ that I wanted to include in my own Jekyll Island retrospective, but that I didn’t want to copy and that may have somehow swapped the names of the 1st and 2nd floor apartment owners, based on other sources I’ve found. Again, another set of details I need to further investigate.
The Sanford Fire Insurance maps, “…were designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular property and therefore show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers.”
It’s also been noted that the maps, when updated with a regular rhythm, provided historians and officials with a ready reference for when and how towns and cities developed and expanded over-time, including major changes such as the creation of roads and clearing of land or existing developed land and structures to further development and growth.
As to their demise:
“More specific reasons for the decline in use of Sanborn maps were supplied by a librarian for the Insurance Company of North America. “As the nation grew in all areas,” she wrote, “keeping the maps up to date became cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. At the same time, increased financial strength of the Company and the progressive reduction in the number of instances in which we needed such detailed locality information led us to discontinue the service prior to 1950. No comparable source of data has replaced use of maps at INA. There is no need to maintain wealth of detail about the small risk to forestall the possibility of catastrophe from fire. Inspection services maintained by fire insurance rating organizations and our own inspection services have proved adequate in the light of modern building construction, better fire codes, and improved fire protection methods.”
For those unfamiliar with the history of firefighting and fire insurance, it’s a fascinating subject given the major fires that plagued densely-populated urban cities in the 1800’s when so much was built of wood, illuminated by oil lamp flames, heated by open fire or coal-fired systems and then, in the 1880’s, began to incorporate “electrified” systems that had not yet been time-proven for their durability and safety.
This was at a time when home and building owners in many places in the United States had the option of paying a fire-protection subscription in advance to professional firefighting companies which was a large source of their funding for preferential attention. Volunteer fire companies were quite common and often times fire insurers contributed money to these departments and awarded bonuses to the first fire engine arriving at the scene of a fire. The downside to some of these practices was the implied belief — real or imagined — that if a fire broke-out in an uninsured structure, the fire company might not even bother to respond or extinguish it, unless it was threatening an insured, neighboring structure or home. It was a practice used in Europe and Benjamin Franklin brought the practice into fashion in the U.S..LIBRARY OF CONGRESS COLLECTION
Introduction, 7 November 2023Word Count 950, 4-minutes Reading Time with 3 Images
We first discovered Jekyll Island in July 1993 when my wife Debbie and I stayed in a portion of J.P. Morgan’s San Souci apartment for our honeymoon. We toured the historic district while also enjoying the very things the millionaire club members had done, e.g., cycling, spending time at the pool, hitting a few golf balls and dining in the clubhouse. It was a grand and relaxing time, and none-to-crowded.
However, we did not make time to return again for 29-years when, in October 2022, we madea five-day trip to the Georgia Barrier Islands, including three days on Jekyll Island where we re-discovered and enjoyed cycling around the island each day and learning more about the history of the island before, during and after ‘The Club Era’ for which it is best known.
In order to build on what I’d learned on those visits and from reading several books, I decided to create my own ‘journal’ to capture the history in a way that would make it easier for me to remember, recall or revisit. I suspect like others who have taken the time to learn more about Jekyll Island and the history of the Jekyll Island Club, I found myself buried under a wealth of information, images and things I wanted to highlight in my journal such that I too ended-up breaking it up into volumes, so to speak.
Moreover, as I read-through what I’d captured, I found I needed to scale-back the detail with the knowledge that I also intended to give full credit to my sources so that anyone with an interest in learning more, could go to the more detailed, highly-researched and footnoted books, all of which I have read at least twice from cover-to-cover.
Note that, this is not an original work. Instead, it is my attempt and building a consolidated, chronological narrative of several excellent books and on-line resources that provide a very detailed account about Jekyll Island History.
The most valuable of these books for the early history are the ones by June Hall McCash with various different co-authors including her late husband William Barton McCash and Brenden Martin. For the more current, state era history, Nick Doms book has been invaluable and in regard to the very recent proposed and rebuffed development efforts by Linger Longer and Trammell Crow, as were the ‘images’ and ‘postcard’ books. The following is essentially by bibliography of the published books, followed by links to just a few of the on-line resources:
For anyone looking to gain a full appreciation for the subject, I strongly encourage you to find and read these works and see the images they include. They are compelling to read and filled with far more details and facts than what I’d characterize as my high-level overview of the Club Era. It was originally my intention to provide a more comprehensive look than what I have thus far composed in my spare time that quickly turned into an Alice-in-Wonderland like journey down multiple Rabbit Holes.
And, if anyone finds factual errors with the data I’ve included in my compilations, or sees that I have shared factual data out of context where it alters or mis-represents the true history, included the wrong photos or dates when photos were taken, please let me know immediately so that I can correct my errors. Feel free do so with with a comment or by sending an Email to me at Mark@Werlivingood.com.
A Little More Background: Creating this type of a detailed, web-based historical resource more-or-less became a hobby of mine in March 2022 when I first decided to dive into and capture the history of our beloved, nearby Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. That inspired me to learn more about the history ofthe city of Marietta,the state of Georgia and our local county. After that, I produced a series of articles on the Bell Bomber Plant & Lockheed in Georgia, my former employer of some 34-years, 27-of-which were here in Georgia. Over the past year, I began to create an on-going series of articles related to exhibits at the Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville Georgia that has turned into something of an obsession. And, the latter was something I needed to take a step away from, which my research into Jekyll Island’s history has enabled me to do.
An Anthology: Segment 1 of 3, 7 November 202315,276 Word Count, 51 Min Read Time, 35 Images
Note that, this is not an original work. Instead, it is my attempt and building a consolidated, chronological narrative of several excellent books and on-line resources that tell a very detailed history about Jekyll Island History that I found I needed to break down into smaller compilations, in much the same was as the authors of some of the books that I reference below. This became the first which I truncated as the Pre-Colonial and Pre-Club Era history and which I found as interesting as the more celebrated Club Era.
The most valuable of these books are the ones by June Hall McCash with various different co-authors including her late husband William Barton McCash and Brenden Martin; they are:
For anyone looking to gain a full appreciation for the subject, I strongly encourage you to find and read these works and see the images they include. They are compelling to read and filled with far more details and facts that what I’d characterize as a high-level overview of the Club Era. It was originally my intention to provide a more comprehensive look than what I have thus far composed in my spare time that quickly turned into an Alice-in-Wonderland like journey down multiple Rabbit Holes.
Reader Notes: In order to help readers gain some additional context about the Club Era,I’ve added notations on cited dollar values from ‘back-in-the-day’ of what their current value is as of November 2023 when adjusted for inflation. I’ve also used, in most cases, the post 1929 spelling of Jekyll Island with both “L’s” after it was legally changed by the state of Georgia to correct the 195-year-old error. Oh, and yes… you’ll likely come across typo’s and grammatical errors; my apologies. I’m my own proofreader and editor, which is not as effective as having fresh-eyes to review a work.
Viewing Suggestions & Recommendations
Scaling: Given the WordPress typefaces, type size and formatting — never mind the length and all of the images — my compilations are best viewed on a larger desktop computer flat screen monitor, with perhaps a Zoom Setting of 110% or 125%, as it will make it much easier to read, especially for the current year values in superscript that follow then-year dollar amounts.
Hyperlinks:You’ll find hyperlinked text in the various tables of contents for the main headings and sidebars that can be used to ‘jump to them’ vs. trying to scroll to them. You’ll also note the major section headings in each table of contents that appear in blue text are also hyperlinked. And, throughout the ‘document’ you’ll find hyperlink that can be used to jump-back to the tables of contents and indexes to speed-up navigating forward and backward in the document.
Like all hyperlinks, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the blue colored and sometimes Bold text and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to that section of the document.
Links to Other Internet Sites: You will also sometimes findarticle names or other outside sources in Blue Text or sometimes Bold Blue Text when also associated with an image that I have mentioned inside the body of a paragraph or in “Notes” that indicates they are links to that article or source.
Once again, like other hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the blue colored text and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it you will be taken to a new window with that source.
Images: In many cases, unless it’s obvious from the accompanying text what an image is related to, I have included an image I will have used bold text in the body of the document next to the image that helps explain it. And, to make the images easier to see, I’ve done my best to ensure a larger and scalable image of every embedded image in my compilations can be opened with a click in a new window to provide far-greater detail.
As it is for hyperlinked text, you just merely need to move your cursor and ‘hover’ over the image and if the cursor changes to a hand with the index finger extended, you can click on it and the image will open in a new window.
Oglethorpe, the Founding of Georgia and Naming of Jekyll Island
Jekyll Island is located in Glynn County, just southeast of the city of Brunswick, south of St. Simons Island, and north of Cumberland Island. The 5,700-acre barrier island is 1.5 miles wide by 7 miles long and fronted by Jekyll Creek and salt marsh on the western side and defined by its beach and the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern side.
James E. Oglethorpe, was the 10th and last child of the well-connected, wealthy Eleanor and Theophilus Oglethorpe, born on 22 December 1696. At the age of 26 in 1722, he took ownership his family’s country estate at Godalming in Surrey England and successfully ran for the House of Commons in Parliament, winning the Haslemere seat held previously by his father and two older brothers and held for 32-years, noting the district had few voters, mostly who were tenants on land owned by the Oglethorpe family.
He moved in and out of different universities and military roles, holding mostly honorary degrees and ranks. It was as a member of Parliament where he earned a reputation as a reformer that lead to his role acting in the name of Great Britain’s King George II as the foremost member of the Georgia Trust that was granted a Corporate Charter on 21 April 1732 by King George II, for whom whom the colony and state was named. The charter was finalized by the King’s privy council on 9 June 1732, making Georgia the 13th and last of the original thirteen British colonies in North America.
Oglethorpe envisioned a colony that would serve as a haven for English subjects who had been imprisoned for debt and “the worthy poor”.
Oglethorpe imagined a province populated by “sturdy farmers” who could guard the border; because of this, the colony’s charter and his personal beliefs Georgia originally prohibited slavery.
He thought a system of smallholdings more appropriate than the large plantations common in the colonies just to the north resulting in land grants that would not be as large as most colonists would have preferred.
Oglethorpe’s personal convictions also caused him to impose very strict laws that many colonists disagreed with, such as the banning of alcoholic beverages.
Another reason for the founding of the colony was to serve as a buffer state and a “garrison province” which would defend the southern British colonies from Spanish Florida.
Oglethorpe — who did not originally plan to sail to North America and did so only after his mother died on 19 June 1732, preceded by his father Theophilus in 1702— joined the 114 would-be settlers who sailed from England in mid-November 1732 aboard the frigate ‘Anne’ making the two-month long trans-Atlantic journey and landing first at the Charleston settlement in South Carolina on 22 January 1733 to take on provisions. It wasn’t until 12 February 1733 when Oglethorpe lead the settlers on the final and short, 75-mile sailing landing at what became the settlement of Savannah, officially founding the Georgia Colony and assumed his duties as its de facto colonial governor.
He renamed ‘Isla de Ballenas’ (The Island of Whales) in the Province of Georgia in honor of his long-time friend and judge, Sir Joseph Jekyll on 28 January 1734, who was instrumental in many matters, the support he sponsored via legislation as well as his personal financial donations to establish the Georgia colony effort led by Oglethorpe. Moreover, he and Oglethorpe were ‘kindred spirits’ in terms of protecting the new colony from Spanish incursion, a prohibition on slavery, freedom of religion, and was infamously known for authoring England’s ‘Gin Act of 1736.’
For many years, including the “Club Era”, the island was spelled as “Jekyl” which likely stemmed from written decrees and documents where Sir Jekyll’s name was spelled phonetically as Sir. Jseph Jekyl and adopted as such in other written instruments: a common practice in colonial North America.
Governor Oglethorpe’s dream that the colony of Georgia would become an ideal agrarian society began to fade as the Spanish military presence in St. Augustine and Spain’s claims to a larger Florida expanded, the threat of invasion heightened causing Oglethorpe to focus his efforts on the defense of Georgia in it’s role as the buffer state for the Carolina colonies.
During these early days of the colony’s formation, given that financial support from the rest of the Georgia Trustees and British Parliament had never been sufficient, Oglethorpe mortgaged his substantial, inherited landholdings in England to finance the colony’s needs. Although he hoped that Parliament would repay his rising debts, he fully realized he could lose everything but so-believed in the cause for Georgia, he was not going to give up so long as he had resources that could be leveraged.
Oglethorpe returned to London on several occasions to lobby the Trustees and Parliament for funding to build forts in Georgia.
During a visit in 1737 Oglethorpe convinced King George II to appoint him as a colonel in the army and give him a regiment of British soldiers to take back to Georgia: at that time, Oglethorpe was still a civilian, with only limited military experience.
His request was granted with the rank of colonel in the British army and a regiment.
Oglethorpe also was given the title of “General and Commander in Chief of all and singular his Majesty’s provinces of Carolina and Georgia.” The latter led to confusion as to whether Oglethorpe was a colonel or a general.
During the active, armed conflicts with Spain, Oglethorpe did, in fact, hold a brevet field commission as a general officer in order to command all allied forces: Carolina Rangers, Indian allies, etc.
It was not until September 1743 when Oglethorpe attained the official rank of brigadier general in the British army, having in 1742 stepped down as the colonial governor of Georgia and, on 28 September 1743, returned to England where he was subsequently married for the first time at the age of 48 on 15 September 1744. It was well after now Brig. Gen. Oglethorpe had left Georgia when colonial Georgia’s ban on slavery was lifted in 1751, a year before the colony became a royal colony in 1752.
The Georgia legislature in 1929 passed legislation to correct the spelling to “Jekyll”, as used by the former sponsor of the colony. The timing was unfortunate, in that it coincided with the Great Depression of 1929 that triggered many significant changes to the Jekyll Island Club founded in 1886 and its well-to-do members who belonged to the Club until the Island was essentially occupied by the U.S. Military during World War II, and then acquired by the state of Georgia in 1947 via uncontested condemnation for $675,000, inclusive of all improvements since 1886. The combination of the original members “aging-out,” impacts from the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent depression impacted many of the members of the exclusive, remote island Club, causing membership to decline through the 1930s, exacerbated by lifestyle and Club management changes during World War II. A common refrain from the era was, “They added the second ‘L’ and it all went to hell.”
The Pre-Club History of Jekyll Island, 1500 B.C. – 1886 A.D.
Native Americans, 2500 B.C. – 1492 A.D.
The first inhabitants of the island were small groups of Native American hunter-gatherers, sometime around 2500 B.C., during the Archaic Period. These groups were most likely composed of small family units that probably settled on Jekyll on a seasonal basis. They produced fiber-tempered pottery vessels and lived on the abundant natural resources of the area. Archaeological evidence suggests that Jekyll seems not to have supported a long-term permanent settlement by any aboriginal peoples, even though by 1000 B.C. Georgia’s coastal natives had begun to collect in settlements with less seasonal migration and larger population numbers. As Native American culture advanced, little changed on Jekyll Island. By 1540 A.D. the Georgia coast had become populated by the Guale Native Americans. The Guale extended from St. Catherines Island south to Jekyll Island, where they gave way to the Timucuan groups to the south.
The first European occupation of Jekyll Island is thought to have taken place during the late sixteenth century by which time Guale Native Americans had inhabited several of the barrier islands. During that period a chain of Spanish missions was established along the Georgia coast. The Spanish name for Jekyll was Isla de Ballenas, “Island of Whales,” because of the abundance of right whales off the island in the Gray’s Reef area. Although records dating back to 1655 suggest a Franciscan mission known as ‘San Buenventura de Guadalquini’ was established in the Brunswick area and likely on Jekyll Island, there is no physical evidence of a mission on Jekyll Island, whereas archaeological studies have shown a definable occupation by the aforementioned Guale Native Americans during the period. There is strong archival evidence that the Spanish at least explored and had contact with native peoples on Jekyll during this period.
British Colonial Georgia & Major William Horton, 1733 – 1748
In 1733 James Oglethorpe and 114 settlers aboard the frigate Anne landed and established the British colony of Georgia on Yamacraw Bluff, in present-day Savannah. The colony grew quickly, and a conflict developed with the Spanish colony of Florida to the south. Owing to its role as a barrier state — one of the reasons the charter for colonial Georgia was granted — Oglethorpe augmented the civilian farming colonists by recruiting men from England to serve as dedicated members of a militia in Georgia. William Horton was one of the men recruited and arrived in Savannah during February 1736.
Upon his arrival, Oglethorpe dispatched Horton and thirty other militia recruits to St. Simons Island to establish a town and fort at Frederica. Horton was a key player in these events, attaining the rank of major and placed in command of the militia garrisoned in the area. While establishing Fort Frederica, given his rank and role, Horton was granted 500 acres of land on the neighboring, recently re-named Jekyll island by the Trustees of the colony… for consideration of one pound, one shilling and a promise to improve the land with his ten indentured servants.
I’ve included the following to provide readers with an overview of the land grant system used in colonial Georgia under which Major Horton and other’s who came to be granted land on Jekyll Island were required invest assets and effort to develop the land. In other words, it was a gift of land, so much as an obligation to further the expansion of the colony through productive use of land for personal needs as well as commercial needs, such as the export of agriculture, both planted crops and livestock. This will become very important to understand when the Clement Martin family enters the picture in 1754.
Sidebar 1: THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT IN GEORGIA, 1752-1776 V. The Land System. By Percy Scott Flippin, Ph. D., Mercer University.
From the very beginning of the colony the acquisition of land was of vital concern to the colonists. Although the population was not numerous and land was plentiful there were specific and detailed regulations as to securing grants.
In the early colonies, a governor or proprietor could sell land or give it away to soldiers and settlers. Those who immigrated or brought a certain number of immigrants to a colony sometimes received “headright” or similar grants of land as compensation for settling the colony. The headright system referred to a grant of land, usually 50 acres, given to settlers in the 13 colonies. The system was used mainly in Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland. It proved to be quite effective by increasing the population in the British colonies.
While Georgia was a Royal Colony, land grants were issued by the Royal Governor in the name of the King of Great Britain. A colonist submitted a petition to the governor with a general description of the land he wanted. The governor issued a warrant to the colonist. The warrant directed the surveyor general to have the tract surveyed. After the survey was completed, the governor issued a grant and plat. One copy of these documents went to the grantee, another copy was kept by the surveyor general and copied into a volume as the official record copy.
The maximum grant was at first five hundred acres to a settler who had six able-bodied men servants. The character of the person desiring land and his financial ability to improve it were usually the determining factors. There was, as might be imagined, evasion of the requirements. “One method of evasion was to grant to a man the maximum acreage allowed and then to lease him an additional amount on such terms as would practically make the lease a free grant. Another evasion was to grant to a man’s brother or nephew or friend a tract of land that by private arrangement between them could be held for the benefit of one to whom the trustees could not legally grant any more land. These evasions were, however, not common enough to result in any large plantations in the colony.”
In a letter of a little later date (February 28, 1755) Reynolds stated to the Board of Trade in regard to land:
“All such allotments as do contain more than five hundred acres to any person, upon which I must beg leave to observe that the late Board of President and Assistants have informed me that they never had any directions about the terms and conditions of grants or allotments since the resignation of the charter, and the late Trustees by an instrument I have seen bearing date, July 13, 1750, did then remit all sorts of terms and conditions, except the payment of the quit-rents, (none of which has ever been paid) , and with regard to no more than five hundred acres being granted or allotted to any one person, they have since the Trustees resignation, evaded it, by frequently making allotments of large quantities of land to one person, in the names of all his children, for five hundred acres to each, many of them infants in the cradle, or to their relations, absentees, or fictitious names. And by that means all the best lands in the province have been disposed of.”
The appeal to the king and the letters from Reynolds had some effect, for by August 12, 1755, the following additional instruction was sent to Reynolds. Instead of the annual clearing and cultivating of five acres in every one hundred acres, it was provided,
…”that for every fifty acres of land accounted plantable, the patentee shall be obliged, within three years after date of patent, to clear and work three acres, at the least in that part of his tract which he shall judge most convenient and advantageous, or else to clear and drain three acres of swamp or sunken grounds or drain three acres of marsh, if any such be within his grant.
That for every fifty acres of barren land he shall put and keep on his land, within three years, after date of grant, three neat cattle or six sheep or goats, which number he shall be obliged to continue on his land, until three acres for every fifty be fully cleared and improved.
That if any person shall take up a tract of land wherein there shall be no part fit for present cultivation, without manuring and improving the same, every such grantee shall be obliged within three years from date of grant, to erect on some part of the land, one good dwelling house, to contain at least twenty feet in length and sixteen feet in breadth, and also put thereon, the like number of three neat cattle or six sheep or goats for every fifty acres.
That if any person shall take up any stony or rocky ground not fit for planting or pasture, if any such patentee shall, within three years after the passing of his grant, begin to employ thereon and so to continue to work for three years then next ensuing, digging any stone quarry or coal or other mine, one good and able hand for every hundred acres of such tract, it shall be accounted a sufficient cultivation and improvement.
That when any person who shall hereafter take up and patent any land shall have seated, planted, cultivated or improved the said land, or any part of it, according to the directions above mentioned, such patentee may make proof of such seating, planting, cultivation and improvement, in the General Court, or in the court of the county, district or precinct, where such land shall lie, and have such proof certified to the Register’s Office, and there entered with the record of said patent, a copy of which shall be admitted as good evidence on any trial to prove the seating and planting.
By 1737 Horton established a homestead1 on the northern end of Jekyll next to the Marshes of Glynn and began to farm the land, raise cattle as well as further extending the colonial Georgia occupation of land to the south. In 1740, he returned to England to see his family after four-long years in Georgia and to attend to other duties associated with furthering the development of the colony, raising recruits to return with him and also arranged for the families of his new troops to travel to and settle in Georgia, including his wife Rebecca and their two sons, William and Thomas when he returned in June 1942, as a most precipitous time.
Note1 : There is reference to ‘fortifications’ on the north end of Jekyll Island and an ‘outpost’ commanded by William Horton’ interrelated with his homestead mentioned in a 2018 Coastal Georgia DNR study, but only Horton’s 2nd homestead structure and a few other ruins from that era remain.
After an unsuccessful siege of St. Augustine by colonial British militia lead by Oglethorpe in 1740 during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, Spanish forces launched a retaliatory invasion of Jekyll and St. Simons Islands, targeting Fort Frederica in midsummer 1742. Over a two-week period, Oglethorpe and his ‘allied forces’ at St. Simons Island engaged the invading Spanish forces in a skirmish at Gulley Hole Creek and on July 7, 1742 ambushed the Spanish in the Battle of Bloody Marsh in a drizzling rain. As a result, the Spanish retreated, never again to present a threat to British colonization of the Southeast. It was during their retreat from this incursion by the Spanish that Horton’s original stick-built house on Jekyll Island was partially destroyed, along with his plantation, stores and livestock.
Horton, his family and several indentured servants — remembering colonial Georgia still forbid ownership of enslaved people — re-established the plantation and re-built the structural walls of the home out of tabby in 1743 that still stands today. After rebuilding the house the Horton’s were able to reestablish their plantation, grain stores, livestock and provided for many across the bay in Brunswick at Fort Frederica while also entertaining at their home with Major Horten actively engaged in colonial matters by 1745. While attending to his military duties that took him to Savannah during King George’s War from 1744-1748 he was still able to find time for family and to even pursue brewing beer for the troops at Frederica in a large copper kettle he acquired in 1747 and installed in a wood outbuilding nearly his grain storage barn. It was also in 1747 that Major Horton fell ill during an epidemic, but recovered only to once again fall ill in 1748 while in Savannah where he died while still in his 40’s. His 500-acre grant was passed to his younger and more ambitious son, Thomas — it’s unknown if his older son William had left the colony before reaching adulthood or quite possibly died — who had no interest in being a planter thus the island was left without a caretaker for the immediate future. HIs wife Rebecca was granted a pension, never re-married and died in 1800 per colonial pension records. The remains of the Horton home are among the oldest structures in Georgia and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The importance of Major Horton’s role in support of Oglethorpe as both a military and colonial leader, while at the same time establishing a viable plantation on the Island in spite the aforementioned ransacking by the Spanish as well as the challenges posed by the natural environment of the island while separated from his wife and family for four years before they joined him in colonial Georgia However, the death of William Horton and the indifference of his son Thomas towards Jekyll Island left the island with an uncertain future.
For the rest of the eighteenth century, Jekyll Island and its subsequent land holders and owners would be caught up in family disputes and the political upheavals of a colony in turmoil. Their stories move along the timeline to the end of the trustees management of the Georgia Colony, the King’s establishment of the royal colony, the next surge of activity in the plantation era at Jekyll Island, as well as its end during the Civil War before the Jekyll Island Club Era began in the 1880’s.
Subsequent Ownership of Jekyll Island, 1749 – 1800
Between Horton’s death and 1791, several different personalities were granted land by the King on Jekyll Island, including Capt. Raymond Demere, Clement Martin and Jane & Richard Leake.
Lt. Paul &Capt. Raymond Demere, 1749 – 1767
Lt. Paul Demere and his brother Capt. Raymond Demere were officers serving under Oglethorpe in Georgia from May 1738 through Oglethorpe’s return to England in 1743, and then under the subsequent colonial governors in South Carolina. It was first Lt. Demere who commanded a small garrison of troops on Jekyll Island established at the Horton house in June 1749 thru September 1750, at which point his brother, Capt. Demure, took charge of the post. It’s noteworthy that on 1 January 1751 the peculiar institution of slavery became legal in Georgia at the behest of the planters.
During his years of service, Capt. Demure was granted thousands of acres of land by the trustees and King from Charleston to the border with Florida, including land on St. Simons Island and 600 acres on which to graze cattle on Jekyll Island, but not Major Horton’s 500 acres on Jekyll Island as they had been passed to his son Thomas. Thomas Horton had never set foot on Jekyll since inheriting the grant, so Capt. Demure was permitted to make sure of the land, but never held title to it. In 1754, at the age of 52, Demere oversaw the reconstruction of Fort Prince George at Keowee, South Carolina and construction of Fort Loudoun at what was then the western-most outpost of the British colonials that is now in Tennessee, settling in his property at St. Simons Island after retiring from the British Army in 1761, were he died at the age of 64 in 1766. His brother Paul had been killed in August 1760 fighting the Cherokee after taking over command of Fort Loudoun from Capt. Demure in 1757. Hence, the property on Jekyll was once again without a land-grant holder as his heirs had no interest in the island and his neighbor and member of Georgia’s Royal Council, Clement Martin Jr., had sufficient foresight and connections to apply for and be granted Capt. Demure’s 600 acres on Jekyll Island.
Clement Martin, Sr. was a retired British sea captain and merchant who took up residence on St. Christopher in the West Indies, also known as St. Kitts, in 1723. Upon arriving he married Jane Edwards and began a family, eventually with seven children. He likely owned a sugar plantation, given it was the most profitable crop grown on the island, given the sizeable number of enslaved people he brought to Georgia in 1767.
However, it was his eldest son, Clement Martin, Jr, aka. Clement Martin, Esqr., born in St. Kitts during the 1720’s who played a key role in the Jekyll Island history after becoming a prominent and wealthy land holder in Georgia after arriving from St. Kitts in 1754. Having served as an assistant register of deeds in St. Kitts, Martin Jr. came to be recommended for, and appointed to serve on the Royal Council in Georgia in the Upper House of the Assembly at the Court of St. James on 17 Dec 1754 where he was known as Clement Martin, Esqr. Due to politics and personality issues with the then-royal governor John Reynolds, he was wrongly removed from his seat in September 1755. Martin Jr. was eventually re-instated and re-seated in 1760. This came after Governor Reynolds had been removed in and replaced by Lt. Governor Henry Ellis on 16 February 1757 who, in turn, was replaced by the last and most popular royal governor of Georgia, James Wright in 1760 and after learning of the injustice of Martin Esqr’s removal by Governor Reynolds, appointed him to fill one of two vacancies on the Royal Council when he became governor.
Petitions for Land-Grants:
Shortly after arriving in Georgia, in August 1754, Martin Jr. began to petition the Royal Council in Georgia for the usual 500-acre land-grant near Newport River under the name Clement Martin.
His younger brother William Martin may have arrived with Martin Jr. in 1754, as he also petitioned for his first 500-acre land-grant adjoining Martin Jr’s at Newport River.
Curiously, on 5 March 1756, a Clement Martin, Sr. applied for and received a 500-acre land grant close to the Newport River land granted to Clement Martin, Jr.
However, as already noted, Martin Sr. didn’t arrive in Georgia until 1767, by which time Clement Martin, Jr. / Esqr. had made multiple land-grant requests, so it is possible he submitted one on behalf of his father.
Those additional land grants included several made on 5 March 1956 that included a lot in /Savannah’s Heathcote Ward, one at Hardwicke No. 63 in St. John’s Parish, next door to Capt. Demere, and 500 acres on the north side of Lake Ogeechee,
However, the latter does not explain why on 6 August 1765 Martin Jr. filed a petition for a 2,000-acre land-grant at an area known as Butter Milk Bluff on the River St. Mary for his ‘forty Persons in Family.’
Another one of Martin Jr.’s younger brothers, John Martin, came to Georgia most likely in 1755, petitioned for a 100-acre land grant on 4 July 1958 at a place called Midway, having attested that he had been in the colony for three-years by that time.
Following the passing of his neighbor Retired Capt. Demere in 1766, and a month after Capt. Demere’s will had been probated, Martin Jr. requested Demere’s 600-acres on Jekyll Island be passed to him using his council title of ‘Clement Martin, Esqr.’ The request was granted and the land passed to Martin Jr. instead of Demere’s heirs, noting General Surveyor who granted the request was a fellow council member of Martin Jr.
As noted earlier, Clement Martin Sr. left St. Kitts and came to Georgia on 3 July 1767 with his wife Jane and their three daughters Betsy, Ann and Jane to be closer to his sons. He left his land in St. Kitts in the hands of overseers as were many of the British land-holders at St. Kitts do to fears about a potential uprising by the enslaved people of color, severe weather and presence of pirates and privateers who made temporary port on the island, further raising the risk of violence on the island.
The reputation and name recognition of his son, Clement Martin Jr / Esqr was of a benefit to Clement Martin Sr when he arrived in Georgia and curiously filed a land-grant petition for the entirety of Jekyll Island for he and the 100 enslaved people he brought to Georgia from St. Kitts to occupy and cultivate. It was upon the arrival of Martin Sr that confusion begins to surface on matters where there are already land grants in the name of Clement Martin, Clement Martin Esqr. and Clement Martin Jr, never mind a growing rift between Martin Sr and Martin Jr.
It was on 5 April 1768 that the King granted Clement Martin Esqr his petition for the balance of land on colonial Georgia’s Jekyll Island — noting Clement Martin Jr had just one-month prior resigned the 600 acres as well as another 1,200 acres he had subsequently acquired in exchange for other lands in the Colony — and coming to some arrangement with Major Horton’s son, Thomas and heir to Horton’s grant of 500 acres, per a requirement to secure title to that portion of the Island by the King’s council.
Martin Sr, his wife and three daughters took up residence in the Horton house where his oversaw and raised livestock — much of it left on the island by Capt Demure’s heirs –– as well as what was likely some type of crop without great success on the 2,450-acre island. It’s noteworthy that the same struggle to cultivate crops on the island were encountered by Capt Demere before him with the benefit of enslaved labor, as well as Major Horton who struggled to manage the land prior to being allowed to own enslaved people, noting the King did not acquiese to settler’s demands to allow the ownership of enslaved people in Georgia until 1 January 1751.
During the subsequent seven years that Martin Sr. lived on Jekyll Island, his three daughters had been married — Betsy died within three-years of her 1768 marriage to John Simpson leaving a son, Clement Jacob Simpson — with Ann and then Jane being married in 1774. Jane’s husband was Richard Leake, an successful Irish settler and surgeon, who would come own Jekyll Island in 1784 after a tumultuous series of events in the Martin family that coincided with the American Revolution.
It was also during those seven years that family issues developed between Martin Sr. and Martin Jr., and that Martin Sr. struggled to make the island plantation productive, consuming much of his wealth and taking on significant debts. At the same time, tensions between the colony’s so-called ‘patriots,’ the King and loyalists were building as the demands, regulations and demands being placed on the North American colony were fanning the flames of rebellion that gave rise to the Revolutionary War in 1775. From your history books you may recall it was on 23 April 1775 when hostilities at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts eventually causing King George III to declared all the Colonies to be in a state of rebellion on 23 August 1775.
While there are no causes of death listed, it was on 11 October 1775 when Martin Jr. who would have been in his mid-50’s died in the Yamacraw community of Savannah, and just over a month later when his father, Martin Sr. died in his 70’s at Sunbury Georgia that became a ghost-town after the Revolutionary War, despite having been the second largest seaport on the lower Atlantic Coast, as only the port of Savannah was larger. It is thought Martin Sr. had gone there to visit his son, John, who had settled there and recently become a military officer at the recently established Fort Morris by colonial patriots.
The death of the two family leaders left Jekyll island in limbo, as Martin Sr’s debts were nearly as great as the value of the island and his remaining son John — as by then William Martin had either died or also fallen-out of favor with his father as he was not named in Martin Sr’s will — had been deemed a traitor for siding with the British during the war. As such, all persons deemed traitors forfeited all lands owned and were barred from owning land in the Colonies.
Once again, in an effort to make a long story short, the Revolutionary War along with issues with both Martin Sr. and Martin Jr’s heirs did not get resolved until Martin Sr’s daughter, Jane and her huband John Leake who came to the fore who by this time was a Clerk of the Court in the House of Assembly, took over as the administrator of the estate. On 21 January 1784, Dr. Leake posted a notice soliciting for all demands against the estate be filed by 1 March 1784.
During the 1700’s, revolutionary eagerness was slow to take hold in colonial Georgia, given it had not been chartered as the last British Colony until 50-years after Pennsylvania (the 12th) and 70-years after South and North Carolina (the 10th and 11th), as well as the effective leadership of Royal Governor Sir James Wright. Under Wright, Georgia had prospered under royal rule, and many Georgians thought that they needed the protection of British troops against a possible Indian attack. Sir James Wright was the third and last British Royal Governor who successfully encouraged the colony’s growth by attracting new settlers, productive negotiating with the Native Americans and overseeing the expansion of Georgia’s territory. Wright himself became one of the largest landowners in the state with eleven plantations and 523 enslaved people.
As revolutionary fervor spread through the colonies, Wright’s popularity, along with his administrative ability, effectively delayed rebellious activity in Georgia. However, in January 1776, a group of patriots led by Joseph Habersham issued an arrest warrant for Governor Wright and briefly took him prisoner. Within a month, Wright broke his parole and left Savannah for London on the British Navy man-of-war, the HMS Scarborough.
Georgia did not send representatives to the First Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1774, nor did any of its elected officials go the Second Continental Congress in 1775, only Lyman Hall — an active and early leader in the Georgia’s revolutionary movement— representing St. John’s Parish was present as a non-voting participant. A year later, as an official representative of Georgia, Hall signed the Declaration of Independence along with Button Gwinnett and George Walton of Georgia.
During the American Revolution, and having made little progress in their northern campaign, British troops began a southern campaign in an effort to defeat the colonials in America, capturing Savannah, then the capital of Georgia.
In the battle for Savannah in October 1779, Brigadier-General Casimir Pulaski was given charge of the armies of both the American and French forces under General Benjamin Lincoln and Count d’Estaing, respectively. The British had controlled Savannah for almost a year, and the combined French and American forces made a valiant attempt to gain control of the city but failed. While leading a cavalry charge, Pulaski was wounded and ultimately died without every gaining consciousness and became the only high-ranking officer of foreign birth to lose his life for the American cause during the American Revolutionary War.
When the British captured Savannah in December 1778 Sir James Wright was reinstated as Royal Governor.
The Battle of Kettle Creek fought on February 14, 1779, northwest of Augusta, was the most important battle of the American Revolutionary War to be fought in Georgia. The victory by the American Patriot Militia virtually ended the movement to remain loyal to England among Georgians. A Patriot loss at Kettle Creek would have forced the surrender of Washington’s forces in the north had given the British control of Georgia’s backcountry towns and settlements.
Governor Sir James Wright returned to Georgia on July 14, 1779, and announced the restoration of Georgia to the crown, with the privilege of exemption from taxation. Thus, Georgia became the first, and ultimately the only one of the thirteen states in rebellion to be restored to royal allegiance. The British continued to hold the city until after the battle of Yorktown in October 1781. Wright and the royal government evacuated Savannah on July 11, 1782 and returned to England.
Dr. Leake was born to British parents living in Cork, Ireland. He went on become a surgeon who arrived in Georgia in 1774 and subsequently met and married Jane Martin later that year. While not while necessarily being sympathetic to the patriots or loyalist, he had not been rumored to be, nor was he ill treated or deemed a traitor and added to the Bill of Attainder as was John Martin had.
As noted above,21 January 1784 Leake posted notice as Martin Sr’s estate administrator soliciting all demands, for which none were received. However, before all matters were resolved, the Martin Sr. estate was seized by the Liberty County sheriff pursuant to confiscating and auctioning-off all the lands of the traitor, John Martin. Dr. Leake protested the sale, arguing Jekyll Island had never passed to John Martin as the estate was not yet settled. The sheriff did not relent and moved forward with the auction. Having previously purchased numerous confiscated lands from owners who had been banished, Dr. Leake was the successful bidder on Jekyll Island at £500-pounds $111,735 USD adjusted for inflation but refused to pay based on the already disputed sale and it was subsequently resold again at auction where Dr. Leake won the island for £34 pounds $7,597 USD adjusted for inflation and eleven shillings and the county sued him for the difference. However, the process allowed him to acquire title to all of Jekyll Island without had to deal with the heirs or creditors.
Dr Leake and his wife Jane may or may not have ever lived in Horton house briefly in 1784 or 1785, as in June 1785 they took up residence at their ‘Little Ogeechia’ plantation, while he continued to farm at Jekyll as a planter, raise livestock and cut timber with several different overseers living on the island at Horton house, with enslaved people of color brought in to tend the lands and sea cotton being his primary cash crop.
In 1791, Dr. & Mrs. Leake moved to their large, mainland Belleville plantation in McIntosh County, Georgia and in April 1791 sold his Little Ogeechee plantation for £850 pounds sterling $192,481 USD adjusted for inflation, having already sold Jekyll Island on 15 February 1791 for £2,000 pounds sterling $452,905USD adjusted for inflation to Francis Marie Loys Dumoussay de la Vauve who, by that time, had purchased four of the barrier island from John McQueen: Sapelo, Blackbeard, Caberreta and Little Sapelo.
After buying Jekyll Island from Leake on 14 Feb 1791, it was later discovered by the local tax collector of Chatham County that Doumoussay had failed to pay the property taxes on those islands, seized Jekyll Island and sold it at public auction on 17 April 1792 to cover the £100-pounds $22,652 USD adjusted for inflation tax obligations. The winning bidder was Nicholas Francois Magon de la Ville-huchet, one of Doumoussay’s investors in Sapelo Island, who in turn, conveyed a fourth of Jekyll island to each of the Sapelo Company’s French co-owners: DuBignon, Doumoussay and Julien Josepth Hyacinth de Chappedelaine on 22 May 1792.
In 1802 Dr. Leake went on to acquire a tract of about 5,000 acres at Sapelo South End from the agents of the dissolved French Sapelo Company. The negotiations for this transaction were completed by Dr. Leake’s son in law, Thomas Spalding, upon the sudden death of Dr. Leake later in 1802. South End, through the agricultural energies and resourcefulness of Spalding, evolved into the largest and most productive plantation on the island with Sea Island cotton, sugar cane and provision crops cultivated at several location
Of the Sapelo co-owners, only DuBignon who was quite taken with Jekyll Island, moved his family to and took up residence in the former Horton house and re-established the plantation on the island in the 1790s.
DuBignon was a French aristocrat, former French Navy sea captain, privateer and entrepreneur who amassed a small fortune through trade and privateering. During the recent American Revolution, DuBignon harassed British shipping in the Indian Ocean, capturing a dozen ships including one ‘prize’ valued at more than a million French livres. He also added to his fortune through commercial ventures in India.
Sidebar 3: Privateers & the American Revolution
For those who don’t know, in 1776 the Continental Navy had 27 ships vs. Britain’s 270. The Continental Navy never had more than eight ships at sea at one time during the war. By the end of the war, the British Navy’s ship total had risen close to 500, and the Continental Navy’s had dwindled to 20. Many of the best seamen available had gone off privateering, and Continental Navy commanders and crews both suffered from a lack of training and discipline.
Conversely, as for privateers like DuBignon supporting the colonial-rebellion, an estimated 70,0000-plus men served aboard 1,000-plus privateer ships that carried upward. of 20,000-plus guns over the course of the war, with hundreds at sea at any one time. In 1781, for instance, there were only three Continental Navy vessels at sea compared with 499 privateers.
Privateers captured well-over 2,000 British merchant ships — a factor that helped to turn British public opinion against the war — as well as nearly 350 British Navy vessels and 89 British privateers. The British estimated that 10 percent of the troops and cargo sent to the American colonies never made it, with the total value of privateers’ prizes captured range from $15 million to $60 million. A great many sea captains gained their wealth as part of the Rogue Navy of Private Ships Helped Win the American Revolution.
As of 14 October 1800, through land-swaps and outright acquisition from his Sapelo partners, Jekyll Island was completely owned by DuBignon upon purchasing the final fourth for $2,143 $52,218 adjusted for inflation. He and his descendants would remain the principal owners until 1886, with agriculture — a Southern plantation with enslaved labor growing Sea Island cotton — as the primary activity on the island until 1 January 1863 and President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Note 2: I have deferred to the Jekyll Island Club’s spelling of DuBignon vs.using du Bignon
The history of the first four generations of the DuBignon family in Georgia is interwoven with that of Jekyll Island, of which the DuBignons had fractional ownership from 1794 until 1800, and then full ownership from 1800 – 1886. During their nearly 100 years at Jekyll, these descendants of French emigrants became prominent figures in Glynn County, Georgia.
Sidebar 4: Christophe Poulain DuBignon,1739 -1825
Christophe Poulain DuBignon (1739-1825) was the son of an impoverished Bréton aristocrat. Breaking social convention to engage in trade, he began his long career first as a cabin boy in the navy of the French India Company and later as a sea captain and privateer. After retiring from the sea, DuBignon lived in France as a “bourgeois noble” with income from land, moneylending, and manufacturing.
Uprooted by the French Revolution, DuBignon fled to Georgia late in 1790, settling among other refugees from France and the Caribbean. A community long overlooked by historians of the American South, this circle of planters, nobles, and bourgeois was bound together by language, a shared faith, and the émigré experience.
On his Jekyll Island plantation, DuBignon learned to cultivate cotton. However, he underwrote his new life through investments on both sides of the Atlantic, extending his business ties to Charleston, Liverpool, and Nantes. None of his ventures, Martha L. Keber notes, compelled DuBignon to dwell long on the inconsistencies between his entrepreneurial drive and his noble heritage. His worldview always remained aristocratic, patriarchal, and conservative.
The patriarch of the Jekyll Island DuBignon family was born in 1739 His retirement some 50-years later in the 1780s to his country estate in Brittany was cut-short by the French Revolution. Like many French aristocrats, DuBignon moved his family to Georgia in 1791 and became a partner in the Sapelo Company. As the company began to falter, in 1794 he exchanged his share of land on Sapelo Island for land at Jekyll Island with his partners and by 1800 he owned all of Jekyll Island, as noted above. He settled with his family in the Horton House, a residence built out of tabby by Major William Horton in 1743, that DuBignon restored and from there began cultivating on Jekyll Island on his now substantial plantation with fifty-nine enslaved people, as well as owning a house in Savannah, a house in Frederica, land in Brunswick while also operating the sloop Annubis engaged in coastal trade between Savannah and Brunswick.
Sidebar 5: Slavery Reform in the Midst of Jekyll’s Pre-Civil War & Pre-Club Years
Effective on 1 January 1808, the U.S. government banned the importation of enslaved people as part of a comprehensive attempt to close the slave trade. By passing the law in March, Congress gave all slave traders nine months to close down their operations in the United States. This act did not, however, abolish the practice of slavery in the United States or the domestic slave trade.
While the act provided an enormous penalty for anyone building a ship for the trade or fitting out an existing ship to be used in the trade — up to $20,000 $487,342 adjusted for inflation— , enslaved people continued to be smuggled into the nation illegally. While there are no exact figures known, historians estimate that up to 50,000 enslaved people were illegally imported into the United States after 1808, mostly through Spanish Florida and Texas, before those states were admitted to the Union. However, South Carolina Governor Henry Middleton estimated in 1819 that 13,000 smuggled enslaved people arrived every year.
DuBignon adapted to life as a cotton planter on Jekyll Island and prospered at times. But the profitability of cotton dropped sharply in later years due to President Thomas Jefferson’s embargo against the British, the Panic of 1819, and the devastating effects of hurricanes. In raids on Jekyll Island during the War of 1812 British troops plundered DuBignon’s plantation, but the greatest impact during his life on the island resulted from British Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane’s April 1814 Proclamation whereby the British would welcome enslaved African-Americans by negotiating for their freedom by joining the British military, or by relocating as a free people to a British colony.
As a result, twenty-eight of DuBignon’s slaves — nearly half of the plantation’s enslaved labor force — left Jekyll with the British following a 1 December 1814 raid on the Island, plundering his home and destroying livestock at a cost to DuBignon of $69,419 $1,691,542 adjusted for inflation in damages of which only $10,690 $186,483 adjusted for inflation was recovered in 1828, three years after his death. To survive lean times, DuBignon leveraged his assets in France to finance his operations at Jekyll, making his plantation a truly transatlantic enterprise. In 1819, however, prospects were so discouraging that he put Jekyll Island up for sale. When no buyers came forward, the island remained under family ownership. DuBignon died at Jekyll in 1825 at eighty-six years of age, followed by his wife in 1828, leaving his son Henri in full possession of the island and the mansion house.
Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon, 1787 – 1866
Henri DuBignon combined plantation management with civic duties, serving as commissioner of the city of Brunswick, Inferior Court judge, and trustee for Glynn Academy. His militia service distinguished him most, and he carried the rank of colonel and became the became the patriarch of the family when his father died in 1825.
However, it was much earlier in 1807 when he met and married his first of three wives. Before meeting Henri DuBignon, Ann Amelia Nicolau had been born in France in 1787, just ahead of the French Revolution. He parents moved their two sons, Joseph and Bernard, and Ann to Santo Domingo –– then a French possession that eventually became the Dominican Republic in 1844 — where the children all became orphaned when her parents (NFI) were killed during the uprisings by enslaved people of color.
Her brother Joseph was the first to immigrate to the United States and after finding himself employed on Jekyll Island by the DuBignon family, sent for his brother Bernard and sister Ann to join him. Before they arrived in 1804, he contracted malaria likely from slaves on the island and perished in a drowning incident. Her brother Bernard became Ann’s guardian; however, he too became very ill, but his fate was not shared.
Given few options, the 21-year-old saw marriage as the best option and she had by then come to the attention of 21-year-old Henri DuBignon. After a courtship, a prenuptial agreement was signed on 30 April 1807 granting the couple 40 acres on Jekyll Island and 10 enslaved people. They were eventually married on 18 January 1808 and was Ann became the first of Henri’s three wives. She bore Henri nine children between 1808 and 1826, Joseph being her 5th.
Given she had bore 9 children in 19 years, the physical demands of raising children while also being perpetually pregnant and other household chores, recently widowed when her husband George Butler Aust passed, Sarah Ann Aust, nee: Maccaw with three children was hired by Henri DuBignon likely in the mid-to-late 1930’s to assist Ann with the children and household chores, and took up residence at the DuBignon plantation with her three children, the oldest Mary Delora Aust and her brother Paul and sister Fredonia Aust.
Many of his adult children moved to the mainland as soon as they could to establish homes and careers. His sons Charles and Joseph, for example, left Jekyll Island to pursue opportunities in politics, serving as state legislators for Glynn County in the 1840s. It’s noteworthy that Henri essentially disinherited his oldest son Joseph in 1939 for purportedly having what his father said would be consanguineous marriage with his half-niece3 — Felicite Elizabeth Riffault on 22 January 1839, the daughter of Charles Pierre Riffault and Marie Anne Felicite Riffault, nee Grand Du Treuilh — against his wishes.
Note 3: Try as I might, I’ve not been able to connect the family ties between either of her parents and Henri DuBignon that would have given made one of them a half-brother or sister, unless Felicite Riffault’s mother — whose gravestone is curiously one of the the three found on the Horton House grounds — was somehow related to Joseph’s mother, Ann Amelia duBignon, nee Nicolau. However, it is noteworthy that Joseph’s fraternal grandmother, Marguerite Anne Lossieux de Fontenay, had previously been married through which Joseph’s father Heni had two half-sisters, Marguerite de Billot and Marie Clarice de Boisquenay. However, I’ve been unable to trace either of them to Felicite Riffault, but I have seen a family tree produced by the Jekyll Island Museum that does show a relationship branch from Marguerite Anne Lossieux to Felicite Elizabeth Riffault.
However, in due time Henri make Sara his mistress and had three more children with her in the 1840s while working and living at the DuBignon plantation and assisting Ann with the other children. Sarah, knowing Ann DuBignon was in failing health, assumed if and when Ann passed she would take her place as Henri’s wife. It was at the age of 63 after years of perpetual poor health when Ann Amelia DuBignon died from pneumonia on Saturday, 4 May 1950, exactly a week after her 36-year-old son Joseph — who had been disinherited and estranged by his father 13-years earlier — died the previous Saturday, 27 April 1950.
Before Ann had passed, Henri had taken an interest in Sarah’s oldest 22-year-old daughter Mary Delora, with whom he fathered yet another child in 1953. Prior to the birth, Henri married Mary Delora in November 1952.
Henri moved to Ellis Point above the upper Turtle River in Brunswick, Georgia, after his second marriage to Mary Delora in 1852, and Jekyll was no longer the center of family life and it is believed the Horton house was likely abandoned at that point and was found in ruin by March 1862 when union forces landed on the island and surveyed what was left of the mansion.
Mary Delora DuBugnon would go on to have several other children before Henri died at the age of 79 in 1866. Several of Sarah’s children by DuBignon had their surnames legally changed to Turner. Given his multiple marriages and extramarital affairs, Henri DuBignon fathered no less than twenty children.
Having essentially disinherited his oldest son Joseph for having a consanguineous marriage with his half-niece against his wishes, DuBignon bequeathed the majority of his estate — less the furnished ‘mansion house’, buildings and servants that was left to his wife as well as a stipend of $600 a year $18,607adjusted for inflation — to his son Henri when he died.
Pre-Civil War Survey Maps with DuBignon-Era Structures Noted
Charles DuBignon
Henri’s son Charles DuBignon gave up public life, it was said, being “too truthful and upright to excel as a politician.” His marriage to the wealthy heiress Ann Virginia Grantland in Milledgeville, however, established him as a prosperous and respected planter in Baldwin County.
Henri’s son Joseph DuBignon’s as previously noted, had gotten off to a promising start in the Georgia House of Representatives and his career in politics was cut short by his death in 1850 at age thirty-six, leaving behind a widow, Felicite Riffault, and six children, including Josephine and John Eugene DuBignon who all lived on property in Brunswick.
during a storm on 29 November 1858 a ship named the Wanderer owned by Savannah businessman Charles Lamar, was diverted to and unloaded its contraband cargo of 409 enslaved people on Jekyll Island. This was one of the last cargoes of enslaved Africans brought to the United States.
The incident is noteworthy because the Federal Slave Importation Act, passed in 1807 and effective on 1 January 1808, had banned the foreign importation of enslaved peopleinto the United States. News of the Wanderer landing off the coast of Jekyll Island and its cargo quickly spread across the country and contributed to the sectional tensions between the North and the South that would soon lead to secession and the Civil War..
Where it all Began
Late in 1857 Colonel John D. Johnson, a New Orleans, Louisiana, sugar baron who was also a member of the prestigious New York Yacht Club, commissioned a 238-ton luxury sailing vessel to be built on Long Island for his personal use. Upon its completion, the Wanderer was considered to be one of the world’s most impressive privately owned pleasure crafts. Of particular note was the ship’s ability to achieve high speeds; its streamlined design allowed it to sail at a maximum of twenty knots per hour.
Despite the ship’s attributes, Johnson, for whatever reason, did not keep the Wanderer for long. In 1858, while on a voyage back to New Orleans, Johnson sold the vessel for $25,000 $956,000 adjusted for inflation to William C. Corrie in Charleston, South Carolina. Corrie, a prominent South Carolinian with strong ties to political circles in Washington, D.C., and to the elite business community of New York City, hoped the purchase of the Wanderer would afford him admittance into the New York Yacht Club and catapult him into some of the city’s most exclusive social groups.
Shortly after his purchase, Corrie was approached by business associate Charles A. L. Lamar of Savannah, who proposed that together they retrofit the Wanderer and convert it into a slave ship. Lamar, a descendent of a prominent Savannah family that included the second president of the Republic of Texas, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, and U.S. treasury secretary Howell Cobb, was a “fire-eating” radical who had long opposed the U.S. government’s restriction on the importation of enslaved people: Corrie agreed
Corrie returned the Wanderer to New York and oversaw its conversion to a ship outfitted to smuggle enslaved people. Despite the rumors and red flags, the Wanderer passed all inspections and was subsequently cleared for passage to Charleston, South Carolina. On 18 June 1858, the Wanderer departed from New York harbor and arrived in Charleston seven days later where foodstuffs, pans, and tins were put aboard, along with sufficient Georgia pine to construct a second deck beneath the existing 114-foot main deck once the ship reached Africa.
The Wanderer then set sail for Africa, still flying the triangular pennant of the New York Yacht Club, and arrived at the mouth of the Congo River in the Kingdom of Kongo on 16 September 1858. The current-day Democratic Republic of the Congo was then a Portuguese protectorate with a long-established slave market.
Although portions of the West African coastline were patrolled by the British navy, specifically the British African Squadron, which sought to prevent the penetration of illegal slave traders, the Wanderer and its crew easily sailed up the Congo to areas where enslaved people were readily available. Once there, Corrie and Lamar arranged for Captain Snelgrave, a representative for an illegal New York slave-trading firm, to provide 500 African slaves — most of them teenage boys — at a rate of $50 per head, paid for with rum, gunpowder, cutlasses, and muskets rather than with paper or gold. For a period of 10 days, Corrie had so-called ‘tight-packing’ shelves and pens built into the Wanderer’s hold to house human cargo. The entire transaction was completed in less than a month, and by mid-October the Wanderer had begun its return voyage to the United States.
After 42-days at sea, in the early morning hours of 28 November 1858, the Wanderer arrived off the coast of Jekyll Island. James Clubb, a pilot very familiar with the waters of the Jekyll Island sound, was hired by Corrie and Lamar to bring the large ship past the sandbars to the south end of Jekyll Island the entry point arranged by Henri DuBignon Jr., which along with temporary lodging on Jekyll Island was the extent of the DuBignon’s involvement in the planning and execution of the illegal slave trading incident.
The enslaved people were tightly confined in the hull and only allowed on deck once a day, 50 at a time, to eat and stretch their legs. Several purportedly died from lack of air below deck. Of the 487 Africans taken on-board, 78 perished en route, and except for the mortality figures, little else is known about the middle passage experience. The 409 Africans who survived the journey were treated by Brunswick doctor, Robert Hazelhurst as they disembarked the Wanderer, some had diarrhea, scurvy and skin diseases.
Again, this was not a remote or unusual event during this period of time in the United States, it was just unusual for it to occur at Jekyll Island. The new enslaved people were surprised and confused to see other enslaved people of African descent acquired decades ago by the DuBignons, wearing pants and shirts and speaking English. The 409 enslaved people were kept on the DuBignon plantation and the DuBignons received about 40 of the captives as payment for using Jekyll as the landing and temporary lodging location. Within a matter of days, Lamar and Corrie dispatched the balance of the captives to slave markets in Savannah and Augusta, as well as to markets in South Carolina and Florida. However, rumors of the illegal slave trading made its way to the Brunswick Port authorities who impounded the Wanderer once it came into port.
The Aftermath of the Wanderer Incident
Although Corrie, Lamar, and others associated with the smuggling efforts had been somewhat successful, locals quickly spread the word that newly imported enslaved people had been spotted on native soil. Later evidence revealed the crew of the Wanderer had presented counterfeit documentation to the authorities, a discovery that led to an investigation and Lamar, Corrie, and his conspirators were subsequently tried in federal court in Savannah in May 1860.
The federal government tried Lamar and his conspirators three times for piracy in Savannah, GA but was unable to get a conviction, possibly due to being a jury of the indicted men’s peers. There has also been speculation that one of the judges in the case was Lamar’s father-in-law. Prosecutors were unsuccessful in proving their case and the local jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
The Wanderer incident incensed many northerners and contributed to the increasingly strained and deteriorating relationship between the North and the South. Then U.S. president James Buchanan responded to the Wanderer incident by proposing the federal government adopt a more aggressive stance against the slave trade. A little more than a year later, the Civil War began 12 April 1861, a month after President Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861….
A little more than a year later, the Civil War began. In the spring of 1861 Union troops seized the Wanderer as an enemy vessel at Key West, Florida. The Union navy converted the ship and used it for various purposes, including gunboat, tender, and hospital ship. At some point after 1865 the Wanderer was purchased by a private citizen and sailed commercially until December 28, 1870, when it sank in the Caribbean, off the coast of Cuba.
It appears some of the enslaved people used the surname DuBignon after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, and gained their freedom. One, Clementine who was born on the Wanderer, was known as Clementine “Steamboat” DuBignon as an adult where she remained as freed-woman living at the DuBignon plantation on Jekyll Island.
In addition to the normal impediments to managing a plantation on an island, the Civil War touched-on Jekyll Island in 1861 when President Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of the Southern coast. Confederate forces responded by fortifying the entrances to the port of Brunswick and both fortifications and batteries were built on both St. Simons and Jekyll Islands.
On Jekyll Island, in October 1861 Confederate troops — 23-officers and 359 soldier –placed a total of six pieces of heavy cannon in earthwork battery positions. The strong walls of the batteries were built of palmetto logs, heavy timbers, sandbags and then faced with iron removed from railroad lines.
An Example: CSA Earthwork Battery
A marker at the Jekyll Island Airport points out the site of one of the batteries. Because they border the runways, the earthworks can not be visited, but can be easily viewed from the small picnic area by the marker. To reach the viewing point, simply follow North River View from the historic district. The marker is on the left just past Captain Wylly Road and adjacent to the fence by the airport runway.
As the war continued and Confederate forces faced attacks on multiple fronts, the defense of the Georgia coast was placed under the supervision of General Robert E. Lee, who had not yet risen to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia. After considering the situation, with an insufficient number of troops and cannon to properly defend the coast, on 10 February 1862, Lee recommended a concentration on strong points such as Savannah and recommended that the cannon be removed from Jekyll Island and the fortifications abandoned.
As a result, the cannon were removed from Jekyll Island by Major Edward G. Anderson and taken to Savannah. It was at this same time that General Lee, with the support of Georgia’s Confederate Governor Joseph Brown, burned the city of Brunswick as likely the DuBignon homestead on Jekyll Island, as they consolidated forces at Savannah.
On 9 March 1862, a federal naval force consisting of the USS Mohican, Pocahontas and Potomska took formal possession of St. Simons, Jekyll and Brunswick. Union troops eventually landed on Jekyll Island without opposition in January of 1863, whereupon they demolished as much of the Confederate installations as possible. In time, only the overgrown mounds of the earthworks remained.
Sidebar 8: The U.S. Spanish-American War Battery at St. Andrews
The earthworks at the airport are not to be confused with two cast-iron, Civil War–era gun emplacements on the southwestern side of Jekyll Island.
Though of Civil War vintage, the emplacements were installed during the Spanish-American War in 1898. In his autobiography, President Teddy Roosevelt complained about the pressure to protect “everything everywhere,” writing: “One Congressman besought me for a ship to protect Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia, an island which derived its sole consequence because it contained the winter homes of certain millionaires.”
Location of Parrot Gun Mounts
There’s no evidence that the emplacements and their cannons were ever used, except for practice. Each of the emplacements was equipped to mount both 100- and 200-pounder muzzle-loading seacoast artillery. The guns themselves are long gone; the government ordered them removed on May 17, 1898, soon after the Spanish Pacific Squadron was defeated in the Battle of Manila Bay.
The emplacements now are far removed from the beachfront—some 800 feet from shore—due to the slow and steady accretion of sand, soil, vegetation and trees over 125-years.
The following photo was taken in 1899, prior to the removal of the 1860-vintage Parrott cannons that were installed at both the northern and southern ends of Jekyll Island in 1898 during the brief, Spanish American War. The guns were not removed until April 1900, giving Club members and their guests a unique opportunity to see and photograph the cannons. It is amazing how much accretion occurred over the years, which was a constant issue that remains with the western shore of Jekyll Island.
The Civil War Breaks the Chain of DuBignon Ownership, 1866 – 1879
In 1863 Colonel Henri DuBignon divided the island among the three surviving sons of his first marriage — Charles, John Couper, and Henri Charles — and his one unmarried daughter, Eliza. Each son received roughly one-third of the property and Eliza a token of thirty acres. Although Charles relocated permanently to Milledgeville after his marriage, the other two brothers resided on Jekyll and managed the plantation until the hostilities of the Civil War forced its evacuation of the island.
The role of the DuBignons as members of the planter aristocracy ended with the Civil War and abolition of slavery, as it pushed Jekyll beyond the point where it could to be a financially sustainable and viable plantation. The death of Colonel DuBignon in 1866 brought a symbolic close to this era, as his surviving sons and daughter we unable to sustain support for their former plantations and home, as the vast areas had become overgrown and most of the structures were in ruin after the war, while their wealth — much of it held in confederate currency and bonds — was now worthless or gone.
Of Col DuBignon’s children, only Charles who had inherited the southern third of the island and Eliza who had received a token 30-acres of land had retained their ownership.
Henri Charles DuBignon’s northern third of the island had ultimately been acquired by Martin Tufts, a Savannah freight agent in 1876 pursuant to an 1870 owed $3,100 $72,000 adjusted for inflation debt to Mary Heisler, a widow from Savannah who successfully sued and eventually acquired the property through a court judgment. The impoverished Henri Charles died at Brunswick in 1885.
John Couper DuBignon’s middle third was acquired by Gustav Friedlander and W.O. Anderson in 1883, Brunswick Merchants for the sum of $5,235.26 $159,000 adjusted for inflation, likely to settle a debt. John Couper remained on the island, living off of charity from Jekyll Island Club members in a small shack until his death in 1890.
The Jekyll Island Club Members Preserve the Horton House, “Old Tabby”
It is noteworthy that in 1898, members of the Jekyll Island Club lead by Charles and Charlotte Maurice took it upon themselves to stabilize and partially restore the abandoned, remaining tabby shell of the Horton House which was subsequently the home of Christophe Poulain DuBignon who, as noted earlier, acquired fractional ownership of the island in 1790’s and took-up residence in the Horton House in 1794, acquiring full-ownership in 1800. Throughout the time the home remained in the DuBignon family it was also known as the DuBignon Plantation Home or DuBignon Mansion.
After his father Christophe Poulain DuBignon passed in 1825, DuBignon’s son, Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon, was the next member of the family to reside in the home attending to the plantation using enslaved labor from 1825 until likely leaving the island in 1852, which would coincide with the year on one of three gravestones found on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansiongrounds. The house and grounds were found in near ruin in 1862 when the island was occupied by Union Troops during the Civil War., the year prior to when Henri divided Jekyll Island ownership among his three remaining sons and one unmarried daughter.
The Restoration of the Horton House and Creation of the Dubignon Memorial Graveyard
By May of 1898, year using concrete, iron bracing rods on the chimney and adding-back brick-concrete wall sections with a concrete veneer, the Maurice lead group was able to restore the structure to the physical form it maintains to this day.
On the grounds around the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion, they found three gravestones — also known as full grave ledgers — for three people associated with the DuBignon family: Joseph DuBignon, Ann Amelia DuBignon, and Marie Felicite Riffault.
The gravestones at one time in the past had been used to cover their graves sites on the grounds of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion, but over time had been disturbed and damaged or perhaps moved by either Confederate or Union Army troops who occupied the island during the Civil War, perhaps even animals left to go wild and other naturally-occurring changes in the landscape that separated the gravestones from the burial plots.
The Jekyll Island Club preservationists built a new, small memorial cemetery within sight distance of the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion out of a low, stucco covered brick wall with a concrete veneer finish –– the same techniques they used as they restored the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion— wherein they placed the three gravestones.
The White marble gravestones were signed at the bottom with “Wm. T White, marble cutter Ch. So. Ca.”.
To help and preserve the gravestones, in addition to the walled and gated cemetery enclosure, they were placed on above ground, exposed brick ‘tombs‘ in a respectful manner and in the center of the memorial cemetery.
Note that in recent past, the gravestones and headstones were restored and cleaned to a high degree.
In 1912, two additional headstones were added to the cemetery, possibly more-or-less memorial markers for two Club employees who accidentally drowned in the Jekyll Creek on 12 March 1912.
The People for Whom the Three Gravestones Were Produced
Joseph DuBignon, (b.1814, d.1850)
The first to have been buried of the three was Joseph DuBignon, the son of Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon and grandson Christophe Poulain DuBignon who died of unknown causes on 27 April 1950.
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED
To perpetuate the Memory Of JOSEPH DUBIGNON Who departed this life On the 27th April 1850, In the Thirty Sixth Year of his age. Remarkable for his noble and social Virtues, as a Son, a Brother, and a Husband. A Patriot and friend, he was suddenly, And in the dawn of his Usefulness, Taken from a devoted Wife, Endearing Children, Parents, Sisters, and Friends, Who are left to mourn His premature Death.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
What tho’ our bitter tears shall fall. Above thy Grave like Autumn’s rain. Yet would we not thy Spirit call. Back to these scenes of care again; For bless’d is he, and doubly bless’d, Who nobly all Life’s paths hath trod. Content to find his final rest. Within the bosom of his GOD.
Born in 1814, by the age of 25 he was a lieutenant in the Glynn County Volunteers, having married Felicite Elizabeth Riffault on 22 January 1839, the daughter of Charles Pierre Riffault and Marie Anne Felicite Riffault, nee Grand Du Treuilh.
They had five daughters and a son between 1941 and 1949, the first four on Jekyll Island by 1945, and then two more in Brunswick in 1946 and 1949.
Their second daughter, Josephine, born on 1 February 1841, would go on to meet and mary Newton Sobieski Finney who, co-founded the Jekyll Island Club with her younger brother, John Eugene DuBignon on 2 February 1849.
In 1845, he was off to a promising start in politics when he was elected as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and became a Justice of the Inferior Court of Glynn County in 1846.
However, his life was cut short by his death in 1850 at age thirty-six, leaving behind a widow, Felicite Riffault, and six children, including Josephine and John Eugene DuBignon who all lived on property in Brunswick.
What makes all of this interesting, is that Joseph was essentially disinherited and remained estranged from his father Henri Charles DuBignon for purportedly going against his wishes and marrying Felicite Elizabeth Riffault in 1839, who Henri claimed was his half-niece, and thereby had a consanguineous marriage.
Try as I might, I’ve not been able to connect the family ties between either of her parents and Henri DuBignon that would have given made one of them a half-brother or sister, unless her mother — whose gravestone is curiously one of the other two — was somehow related to Joseph’s mother, Ann Amelia duBignon, nee Nicolau. However, it is noteworthy that Joseph’s fraternal grandmother, Marguerite Anne Lossieux de Fontenay, had previously been married through which Joseph’s father Heni had two half-sisters, Marguerite de Billot and Marie Clarice de Boisquenay. However, I’ve been unable to trace either of them to Felicite Riffault.
Although not buried on Jekyll Island, Joseph DuBignon’s widow Felicite Elizabeth Riffault DuBignon was born in 1812, in Savannah,Georgia. Her father was 35-year-old Charles Pierre Riffault, and her mother was 36-year-old Marie Anne Felicite Grand DuTreuilh. She married Joseph Dubignon on 22 January 1839 at Brunswick, Georgia and had five daughters and a son. She continued to live in Brunswick until the time of her also somewhat early death at the age of 53, on 10 October 1865. She is buried in Brunswick’s Oak Grove Cemetery.
Ann Amelia duBignon, nee Nicolau, (b.1787, d.1850)
The second to have been buried of the three was Ann Amelia duBignon, the first wife of Colonel Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon and Joseph DuBignon’s mother, who died on Saturday, 4 May 1850, exactly one week after her son Joseph’s death on Saturday, 27 April 1850.
BENEATH THIS MARBLE
Repose the Remains Of MRS. AMELIA DUBIGNON Who departed this life on the 4th May 1850 Aged Sixty Three Years. To enter Upon that which awaits The Pious Christian in Eternity. To know her was Sufficient to Esteem her. Highly Educated in France, Of which She was a Native; Amiable and Courteous. She bid adieu to a devoted Family And a large Circle of Friends Who prized her highly for her many Sociable virtues, and respected her As an Ornament of Society.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
Ah lov’d one. Thro’ this World’s fierce strife Thou were our friend and gentle guide And dearly wert thou loved in life, But dearer still since thou hast died. And now we raise this Tablet stone, To mark the place where sleeps in death. As kind heart as Earth has known As pure as E’er drew mortal breath.
As noted earlier under the brief bio on Colonel Henri Charles Poulin DuBignon, Ann Amelia Nicolau was born in France in 1787, moved to Santo Domingo with her family and became orphaned along with two brothers, Joseph and Bernard, after her parents had been killed during the slave uprisings in Santo Domingo.
Her brother Joseph was the first to immigrate to the United States and after finding himself employed on Jekyll Island by Christophe DuBignon, sent for his brother Bernard and sister Ann to join him. Before they arrived in 1804, Joseph contracted malaria likely from slaves on the island and perished in a drowning incident.
Given few options, the 21-year-old Ann saw marriage as her best option and she had by then come to the attention of Henri Charles Poulain DuBignon. They were eventually married on 18 January 1808 and she was Henri’s first of three wives1. She bore Henri nine children between 1808 and 1826, Joseph being her 5th. As already noted, she died exactly a week after her son Joseph on 4 May 1850 at the age of 63 from pneumonia, noting that her 18-years of near constant pregnancy and rearing nine children left her in poor health for many years.
Note 1: I’ve only been able to find where Henri DuBugnon had two legal marriages, one to Ann in 1808 and a second to Mary Delora Aust in 1952. However, it’s fair to say he essentially had common-law, albeit bigamous marriage to Sarah Ann Aust in the 1940’s producing three children at the same home where he was living with his wife Ann, and also had some type of a similar, marital relationship with one of his female black slaves with whom he fathered several illegitimate children.
Marie Anne Felicite Riffault, nee Grand Du Treuilh , (b.1776, d.1852)
The third to have been buried of the three was Marie Anne Felicite Ruffault, the mother of Joseph DuBignon’s wife, Felicite Elizabeth Riffault and his mother-in-law. She died on 5 April 1852 at 76-years-of-age, just a few months before Henri Dubignon and his new wife Mary Delora DuBignon moved off the island and abandoned the Horton House / DuBignon mansion and just ahead of the Civil War when both Confederate and then Union Troops occupied the island.
SACRED To the Memory Of MARIE FELICITE RIFFAULT, Born the 14th December 1776, In St. Domingo, And died at Brunswick Ga. The 6th April 1852.
“Not only good and kind, But strong and Elevated was her mind, Fond to Oblige, too feeling to Offend. Belov’d by all, to all a good friend.” And faithful to her GOD.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
When Marie Anne Felicite Grand Dutreuilh was born on 4 December 1776, in Petite-Rivière-de-l’Artibonite, Dessalines, Artibonite, Haiti, her father, Jean Baptiste Jerome Grand du Treuille, was 26 and her mother, Marie Anne Felicite Rossignol de Belleanse, was 22. She had a daughter with Charles Pierre Riffault., Felicite Elizabeth Riffault. She died on 6 April 1852, in Brunswick, Georgia at the age of 75, and was buried at the Horton House and Plantation property on Jekyll Island, Georgia.
George F. Harvey & Hector DeLiynassis, 21 March 1912
The other two headstones that were placed in the DuBignon Cemetery were added well after the Jekyll Island Club members had built the memorial cemetery and moved the three gravestone markers into it.
Back on 21 March 1912, one of the Jekyll Island Club’s waiters, George Harvey a young immigrant worker from England, apparently went swimming in the Jekyll Creek and came under duress and was drowning. Another young waiter and purportedly per June McCash’s novel “Almost to Eden” was the personal waiter for the J.P. Morgan, Sr. family, 23-year-old Hector “The Greek” DeLiyannis and immigrant worker from Smyrna, Greece — misspelled Syrmna on the memorial — attempted to rescue him and also drowned. While it is believed both of the young men were buried somewhere on the island, the headstones appear to be just like the three gravestones that were moved there: they were memorials placed there by the Jekyll Island Club’s members to honor their dear departed friends and staff members from the Club.
However, given the actual gravesites upon which the gravestones had originally been placed — along with the assumed and unmarked gravesites for several other members of the DuBignon family who lived on the island since the late 1790s — had been lost to time, there are no remains under the three gravestones in the DuBignon Memorial Cemetery. It is in effect, a memorial cemetery with merely the gravestones that honor the people represented by the markers.
This was purportedly confirmed in the 1970s during other historical research on the Horton House / DuBignon Mansion site when the cemetery was scanned with earth-penetrating sonar, to include the two headstone markers added in 1912 after two unmarried immigrant hotel waiters — Hector DeLiyannis from Greece and George Harvey from England — accidentally drowned in the Jekyll IslandCreek on 12 March 1912.
There Are LIkely Many Unmarked Graves on Jekyll Island
The patriarch of the family at Jekyl, Christophe Poulain DuBignon, died at the Island on 15 September 1825 and was buried in an unmarked grave close to an old oak tree by the DuBignon Creek. His wife, Marguerite, died 29 December 1825 and was buried close to her husband. Their graves are probably located in the vicinity of the present day DuBignon Memorial Cemetery, but have never been definitively found.
Just for context, unmarked graves were quite common in the 1700’s and 1800’s, particularly in times of war, or during outbreaks of malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever and the like when bodies would be buried with little or no markings, and perhaps a description of where a family member was buried in the family bible, i.e., next to a tree or some other object that seemed permanent at the time, but also was lost to time. Such was the case even with the patriarch and matriarch of the DuBignon family on Jekyll Island. Having survived a raid by the crew of the British ship HMS Lacedemonian in the War of 1812 when the DuBugnon plantation was sacked of its valuables, livestock and its slaves, Christophe DuBignon died in peace on his beloved Jekly Island on 15 September 1825 and was buried in an unmarked grave “close to an old oak tree by the DuBignon Creek”. Similarly, his wife Marguerite died on 29 December 1825 and was buried close to her husband. It’s thought their graves are close to the present day DuBignon Memorial Cemetery, but time has erased all traces just as it has with most of the many, many other souls whose bodies were likely buried on the island and without regard to their station in life, be they the master or the servant.
In 1971, the Horton House was accepted and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as being among the oldest tabby buildings in the state. The application makes for interesting reading, albeit in some cases straying from history and incorrectly citing history. But, then again, it was prepared by the Jekyll Island Authority home office in Atlanta, Georgia, who likely relied upon other accounts collected over time and perhaps over-generalized and embellished. But, with regard to the Horton House and Memorial Cemetery, it makes for an interesting summary to the application:
From 1791 to 1886 Jekyll Island was owned by the duBignon family, fugitives from the French Revolution. The original owner, Le Sieur Christophe Poulain de la Houssaye duBignon, repaired the tabby Horton house adding wooden wings and made it his home. The old fields were turned to the cultivation of indigo and Sea Island cotton. Upon his death in 1814 duBignon was buried at a now unknown spot near duBignon Creek.
Generations of his family were buried in the duBignon cemetery overlooking the creek and across from the Horton-duBignon House. During the Civil War, the tabby house and several later duBignon houses were destroyed, as was the plantation economy.
Members of the Jekyll Island Club who purchased the island in 1888 grew interested in the island’s history and reinforced the ruins of the old tabby house. They also built a wall around the cemetery where they buried two sailors [sic] drowned at sea on March 21, 1912.
In 1947 the state purchased the entire island and placed its administration under the Jekyll Island State Park Authority, guaranteeing its conservation and preservation.
The shell of the Horton-duBignon House, the ruins of the old brewery and the small duBignon cemetery stand in marked contrast to the fabulous Jekyll Island Club complex only a short distance away. Yet the contrast marks well the different phases of Jekyll’s history – from the simple 18th century military outpost, to the 19th century cotton plantation, to the 20th century millionaire’s village-altogether having national significance.
This is our post-rally report and I’m pleased to note we were able to enjoy all three days of riding at the Florida Tandem Rally in Wildwood, Florida hosted by the Florida Panthers Tandem Club based in The Villages adjacent to Wildwood. Note: I’m still waiting to see if the many photos taken by Bob Thompson throughout the weekend begin to appear somewhere on the internet and, if and when they do, I’ll add them.
As an added-bonus that can easily be skipped, this rally report also includes our post-rally stop at Jekyll Island where we spent another two days riding our fat-tire, Fandango tandem around the island on it’s lovely mixture of bicycle paths and off-road trails that crisscross the southern end of the island. Given Jekyll was just three hours-away from The Villages and the drive-home from there is only 5-1/2-hours vs. the 6-1/2-hours from Wildwood, it was just too hard not to tie-in a return visit to Jekyll even though it’s only been about a month since our last trip.
Pre-Trip Planning: After going out for a ride on Tuesday and getting serious about preparing for our trip down to The Villages north of Orlando for the 2023 Florida Tandem Rally, I began to toy with the idea of adding-on a two or three-day stay at Jekyll Island on the way back. However, as it was a few weeks back when I was toying with the idea, the cost for a three-night stay was what I’d expect to pay if we were staying in a room in the Jekyll Island Club’s San Souci Apartments were we’d spent our honeymoon back in 1993.
However, on Wednesday after taking care of the yard work, I went back on-line and son-of-a-gun if Sunday and Monday night’s rate had dropped to a reasonable — reasonable for a post-Covid 19 world of runaway inflation — rate that made the stop-over, albeit brief, worth booking: if Debbie said thanks, but no-thanks we had until Friday night to cancel the reservation at no cost. I let her know about my revised trip plan and she was thrilled! We’d take both tandems along for our trip and use the Calfee for the road riding at the tandem rally, and then pull-out our gravel-tandem for riding on Jekyll Island.
The change in plans now required that I figure out how to take both tandems along without putting one up on the roof of the truck: yeah, that wasn’t going to work. So, I pulled-down the Yakima roof rack that I acquired back in 2012 so we could roof-top the three-seat tandem and dug-out the rear-wheel holder that attaches to the fiberglass camper shell with two large suction cups and began to figure out what changes I’d need to make to accommodate the 3-foot shorter tandem.
After getting both tandems down from their respective storage hooks I remembered how heavy the gravel tandem was with it’s three-inch-wide rear tire that needed to be on the bike to roof-top it. So, it would be our super-lightweight Calfee road tandem that drew the short-straw and would be stuck out in the weather, 70-mph wind blast and bugs as well as getting soaked from the nightly dew and any rain on this trip.
After making some adjustments to the rack and what not, I did a trial mounting and all looked good. And with that, the gravel tandem went in the back of the truck along with all my tools and it’s massive tires as well as the short step-ladder I’d need to use to get the Calfee on and off the truck. And, I picked-up a small convex mirror to fit to my driver’s side mirror that would allow me to keep an eye on the tandem as we were driving, less the rear wheel start to move around.
The Drive Down to Florida & Our First Night at The Villages
Thursday: We had a casual morning and left around 10:30am for the for 6-1/2-hour, 419-mile drive to the Hilton Home2 Suites in Wildwood, Florida. Other than the usual, rolling traffic jam that adds 20-minutes to your drive on Interstate-75 drive through McDonough, Georgia just south of Atlanta, it was an easy and uneventful trip.
We’d already made tentative plans to meet with our friends Paul & Jody from Atlanta who we’d not seen in several years, so after arriving at the hotel and getting settled into our room we all jumped-in my truck and headed off to the Prima Italian Steakhouse in the Brownwood Paddock Square, about a 12-minute drive into The Villages. Note that, one of the benefits of having a long-bed, double-cab is that we retain our use of an uncluttered four-seat vehicle at tandem cycling events.
For those who don’t know, The Villages is a collection of four or five major “communities” comprised of 78 smaller neighborhoods, some with as few as 100 homes, while others have more than 1,000: all told, there are purportedly over 41,000 homes and over 80,000 residents per the 2020 census, with the actual number of full and part-time residents at somewhere over 141,000. At present, they’re still growing and adding about 4,000 homes a year. In terms of land area, The Villages covers 80 square miles, equivalent to more than 51,200 acres. Golf is the most popular avocation and there are 12 championship golf courses, 38 executive golf courses and 4 practice facilities, where playing a round at most of the courses is included in the annual homeowner association fees, as is lawn care, trash, etc. Yeah, it’s almost incomprehensible but we could see the appeal during our visit and also appreciated the very different feel each of the major communities had. Amazingly, The Villages is still owned by the Morse family, descendants of Harold Schwartz, who founded what became the The Villages in the 1970s as the Orange Blossom Gardens trailer park surrounded by pasture land that still sits on the eastern edge of The Villages. Schwartz and his son Gary Morse began to fully-developed the land based on the Sun City in Tampa, Florida, model in 1983 and renamed it as The Villages in 1992. A full history can be found here.
It was great visiting with Paul & Jody again, and our dinner at Prima was excellent: Pecan Encrusted Halibut, Pan Seared and Finished with Maple Brown Sugar Glaze, Paired with Truffle Mashed Potatoes and Grilled Asparagus. I must note, when we arrived at Brownwood Paddock Square around 5:30pm, the place was jam-packed with residents as a live band was playing in the square from 5:00pm until 9:00pm and it was also VIP night at Prima: VIPs get their entrees for half-price. So we had a good 45-minute wait to be seated, and it took a bit longer than normal for our meals to arrive. And, we’re told it gets even more crowded and busy towards December and through March when the ‘Snowbirds’ make their way to the winter homes in The Villages. Back at the hotel, we mingled a bit in the lobby area with other folks whom we knew from previous tandem rallies and then called it a night.
Friday: We were up, had breakfast and on-time for the rider’s meeting before heading out on the 37-mile ‘medium’ route on what was our 83rd tandem rally; our first was the Alabama Tandem Weekend at Fairhope, Alabama in 1998.
The weather was wonderful, although the ‘locals’ from Florida couldn’t believe we were heading-out in shorts and short-sleeve / sleeveless jerseys, but the high-60s and sun felt good to us. I suspect we rode a good 9-10 miles around the perimeter road of The Villages before heading off-campus and into the horse and livestock country to the north. Other than being mostly flat-riding, at times it was reminiscent of riding through Virginia horse country with large green, fenced-in horse ranches and cattle farms. We passed by Lake Weir and even encountered some ‘real’ hills with 6% and 10% grades.
We rode with three other couples for most of the route, mixing-it-up with several others as the different routes all began to converge towards the latter half of the ride. Our most constant companions were George and Marti, Art and Miriam and Philip and Beth, with the latter two having electric-assist on their tandems. But, they both used assist settings that were typically on par with our nature-assist tandems that reply only upon their human-powered drive systems. Back at the hotel, I put the tandem back up on top of our truck for the night vs. trying to take it up to our 3rd floor hotel room: that’s just not how we roll…. so to speak.
For lunch, we headed back to Brownwood Paddock Square and found some empty seats at the Harvest Restaurant and Bar outside bar on the square. We split their Harvest Burger on a brioche bun topped with brie cheese, crispy prosciutto, arugula, and truffle aioli; it was delicious.
Back at the hotel, I noticed the ‘plunger’ on one of the two ‘SeaSucker’ suction-cup/vacuum-fixed mounts that hold the rear wheel in place on top of the truck’s camper shell had ‘popped-out’ to where the orange band was showing as an indicator that the vacuum seal had been lost.
Sadly, it turned-out the 12-year-old plastic plunger had failed. I’ve always used two of these where one would suffice as a fail-safe in the event the other one ever failed and that paid-off. After doing an autopsy on the plunger assembly, I belief the plunger failed due to it’s age, and the other mount was just as old so my fail-safe approach was in jeopardy. My solution was to order a replacement ‘SeaSucker’ on line and have it over-night delivered to the hotel. Well, sadly, the earliest it could be delivered anywhere in Florida was ‘some time’ on Sunday, the day we’d be making a 200-mile, 3-1/2-hour drive over to Jekyll Island before noon. My fallback was to go ahead and order the replacement and have it delivered to our hotel at Jekyll Island so it would be there when we arrived to support our much-longer, 350-mile drive home on Tuesday. As insurance against the 2nd ‘SeaSucker’ failing, I used a few pieces of Gorilla Tape to secure the failed mount to the roof of the truck. And, as if that wasn’t enough misfortune, the small convex mirror I’d attached to the truck’s driver side mirror that allowed me to keep an eye on the tandem as we drove came loose. So, I had to get some double-sided mounting tape to address that.
With that all resolved, we opted to stay at the hotel for dinner, as our hosts and long-time friends Bob & Jan Thompson had arranged for a food truck that specialized in BBQ to come to the hotel, as well as food truck that served ice cream. That seemed like a great idea vs. heading off to find a place to eat on a Friday night in and around The Villages.
Saturday: Our day began with a 7:30am get-up so we could grab breakfast, I could get the tandem off the truck and be dressed and ready to go for today’s 44-mile riders meeting at 8:50am, We opted to stick with a group where we knew a few of the folks from Friday’s ride and our long-time tandem friends Lonnie and Carol. We also knew our friends George and Marti would be riding the same 44-mile route, and once again we had a great time.
The 44-mile ride pace was healthy, but not as competitive as what we typically found at other tandem rallies. And, as noted for Friday’s ride, it didn’t prove to be too awkward given there were quite a few tandem with electric-motor-assist systems. In fact, the electric-assist tandems helped to keep the pace high at times with a large group — without shedding teams and leaving many times riding alone — which honestly improved the riding dynamics and experience. Yes, it’s kind of weird to have folks riding at a level that’s on par with or even faster than what would otherwise be stronger and fast teams — and often times setting the pace — but by golly it worked. And, since we weren’t racing with rewards or egos on the line for finishing first, it just sorted itself out quite nicely.
Although, I will confess that during that final 8-miles before the lunch stop and back in The Villages — mostly riding on their very-nice perimeter road sometimes with and without bike lanes –– the pace did pick-up to where we were pushing it pretty hard at times, especially when we got caught at a very-long stoplight mid-pack and then felt compelled to chase down the front half of the group that had picked-up the pace, lead by the electric-assist bikes. And, as luck would have it, when we were within 100-yards of catching the group, we got caught at yet another stop light. This time we opted to just deal with the luck of the draw and rode the rest of the way to our lunch top with the rest of the group that got caught at the light at a more reasonable pace.
Lunch was served at the 38-mile mark at the Rohan Recreation Center at the southern-most point to our 44-mile ride and, once again, we probably rode at least half of the route inside The Villages. The Rohan banquet room we ate in was a lovely, way-too-nice for how we were dressed, airconditioned space with 8-seat ’rounds’ covered with white table cloths and the meal was a wonderful, buffet-style cold cut and cold salad lunch. We shared our table with our long-time tandem friends Bob & Jan, Jodi & Paul and George and Marti.
Again, just a great time to be sure, and despite having not a lot of time on the tandem under our belts since the 2023 Georgia Tandem Rallywhere our Saturday ride was cut-short at the 11-mile point when a large chuck of wire was kicked-up into our drive-chain and tore the rear-derailleur off the bike and bent the titanium rear-drop-out.
After our ride, we returned to the hotel to clean-up and then went off to explore a bit, making a trip back to the Lake Sumter Landing Market Square, the only other square we’d previously been too way back in October 2009 when the Southern Tandem Rally was hosted by what became the Panthers Tandem Club at The Villages. To say it had changed would be an understatement of the highest order. What was at that time a fairly quiet place on a Saturday afternoon in 2009 where we were able to have lunch at R.J. Gator’s bar, was now totally surrounded by tightly-packed homes on all sides with what must have been 200-people gathered outside for live music and dancing at their outside bar, at least 60-or-so who had brought their own folding sports-chairs on the far-side of the patio area.
We’d considered heading on to the Spanish Springs Town Square where our friend Lonnie had let me know they’d be having live-music and a cruise-in / car show, but fearing that too would be far-too crowded for our tastes at the moment, we opted to head back to the Brownwood Paddock Square where we found some empty seats at the BlueFin Grill and Bar — owned by the same folks as the Harvest — for dinner and had an even enjoyable time with ‘Mike’ tending the bar, a snarky-kind of fellow who has lived in and around Wildwood since before The Villages was founded. While watching college football we enjoyed their Oysters Rockefeller as an appetizer and then the Ahi Tuna steak off the Fresh Fish menu blackened with Mango Salsa & Dark Rum Buerre Blanc sauce and a side of delicious, grilled asparagus. It was hands-down the best Ahi Steak meal we could recall.
From there, we headed back to the hotel where we settled into lobby and watched the Major League Playoff games, which drew a fun crowd before heading to our room to finish up the game and read before bed.
Sunday: The day started-off a bit earlier than the past two days, as today’s rider’s meeting was being held at 8:20am, with an 8:30am ride start… 30-minutes ahead of Friday and Saturday’s ride starts.
I should note, we’ve probably skipped the Sunday ride on three-day tandem rallies for at least the last 10 years. But. we were feeling good and so enjoyed the group riding on Saturday and Sunday — never finding ourselves out in ‘no man’s land’ stuck between faster and slower groups — that we decided to hang-in there and give it a go.
We had no problem being ready to go for the ride and it was a great experience. We took our lead once again from our friends Lonnie and Carol and some new friends we’d ridden with on Friday and Saturday. It was 27-mile ride to the southern end of The Villages development and we were always riding with at least 6-10 other teams at a healthy pace with great weather on very good roads with mostly well-behaved motorists.
We opted to get packed-up and head-off for Jekyll Island right after finishing our ride and were on the road by 11:00am for the 200-mile, 3-1/2-hour drive. It was a relatively easy ride mostly on secondary highways where we by-passed Interstate-10 and a good portion of Interstate-95.
As for making sure our Calfee tandem didn’t come off the roof of the truck on the drive over to Jekyll, the Gorilla Tape held fast for the entire ride, noting that the single 6″ SeaSucker mount was probably more than enough for making sure the rear wheel of the tandem didn’t dance-around on the camper shell. We stopped at the Jekyll Island Visitor’s Center and Gift Shop on the way into Jekyll where Debbie found a Christmas ornament and we got a great endorsement for taking the Hollybourne Cottage tour from one of the folks at the store.
Our first stop once we were on the island was Tortuga Jacks, where we had a late lunch while taking in our million dollar view from the Tiki Bar before making the short drive back to the Home2 Suites by Hilton in the Village Green. As I was checking in our hostess handed me the Amazon package with the 4-1/2″ replacement Sea Sucker mount, so we’d be good to go for at least our drive home; a great relief, to be sure.
We stayed-in for the rest of the evening, with me reading my latest book on Jekyll Island during the Georgia State Parks era while Debbie jumped back and forth between the Sunday night football and Major League Baseball playoff game. All-in-all, it was another great stay at our beloved Jekyll Island where we got in another 2-days of tandem riding, about 23-miles on Monday and then another 20-miles on Tuesday, noting we extended our 2-night-stay to 3-nights and didn’t head home until Monday.
I will confess, what ever I’ve gotten into — be it poison oak or something else that has small welts all over my hands and forearms and now migrating to my chest that are irritating and itchy — had made for some restless nights and that’s starting to take a toll.
Monday: As noted, I had something of a restless night and finally got up around 6:30am and moved into the ‘lounge area’ in our room where I continued reading while Debbie slept for another 30-60 minutes before we got up, had breakfast and then got ready to begin our day with a tandem ride at 9:30am.
We headed out for our tandem ride around the island after breakfast and, all told, we rode some 22-miles exploring trails on the south side of the island, checking out the Christmas season lighting displays still being installed just as was the case in late September when we last visited.
We also took time to ‘cruise’ around the Historic District before heading off for the North island loop route where we stopped to find the Brown Cottage ruins, the Club Dairy Farm ruins, visit the fishing pier, and then find Horton Pond before finishing up our loop with a stop for lunch at Tortuga Jacks.
Brown Cottage RuinsTabbi Silo at Club DairyHorton Pond & Two Baby AlligatorsFishing PierView from Tortuga’s at LunchEnjoying our time on Jekyll Island
Our original plan was to only spend two-nights on Jekyll before heading home on Tuesday afternoon, giving us enough time to get in one more tandem ride around the island, etc. and time our drive home to get us through Atlanta after the evening ‘rush hour’ period.
However, once we were back at the hotel, Debbie opted to go and get some sun while I relaxed in the room, did some bill paying on-line and took a look at the one-night rates for Tuesday night just to see on the off-chance that they had enough cancellations that opened-up a reasonably-priced one-night rate. Sure enough, there were a handful of rooms for a much-more reasonable $171/night vs. $335/night that had been the going-rate when I last checked. After Debbie confirmed she’d enjoy spending one more night on the island before we headed home, I went ahead and booked it and also applied some of our ‘points’ that brought the room rate down to $85/night. So, we could now enjoy another full day on the island, something we were both enjoying immensely.
It was around 2:30pm when we headed over to the Jekyll Island Historic District to take a tour of the Hollybourne Cottage: wow; it well worth it. Zoe was our guide and it while it was only her 3rd week since starting to do the tours, she knocked it out of the park… and she and the other couple on our intimate tour appreciated my various historic footnotes. I have so enjoyed knowing so much more about the history of the island as I worked-through my journal entry and have been surprised at how often I’ve been able to share much of what I’ve learned when chatting with other guests, folks who work on the island and even some of the residents. Such was the case during our tour when I was able to help clarify and expand a bit on what Zoe had learned from the tour notes provided to her by the Jekyll Island History Department and other tour guides.
With regard to the Hollybourne Cottage, in 1890 it became the third of fifteen cottages built at Jekyll and the only one owned by the same family all the way through the Club years before the state of Georgia acquired the Island with all of it’s improvements for $675,000 via the condemnation process. It was designed by the owner and bridge-designer Charles Maurice with a bridge-like truss system that mitigated the need for second-story support columns in the middle of the large downstairs dining room, foyer and parlor and was the only cottage in the Club that used a concrete-like tabbi material for the exterior, load-bearing walls. As an interesting anecdote, in 2017 Charles & Charlotte Maurice’s great-great granddaughter Holly Maurice McClure was married on the front steps of the Hollybourne Cottage — something others can do — but had the unique experience of enjoying a private dinner in the partially restored cottage served on the Maurice family’s original dining room table Hollybourne that had been in storage and was restored for the occasion.
Looking East at Gould Tennis CourtsPreservation View of Wall ConstructionOne of the two Trusses in the AtticTrusses Behind WallsLarge Anchor Bolt for Truss RodBasement & Support Piers
From the Hollybourne tour, we went to the shops in the Village Green for the first time and Debbie had a grand time and came away with a cute crop-top T-shirt and a dress. From there, we headed to Tortuga Jacks for an early dinner, despite the cool temps and 20mph winds. Our surf and turf entrée was great and worth fighting through the chill factor so we could once again enjoy that million-dollar view of the Atlantic Ocean.
We were back at the hotel by 6:00pm where Debbie got warmed-up and watched the Phillies vs Diamond Backs MLB division game while I began to work on this journal, with my first entries since the last one I published on 8 October: Yikes! I had a lot of catching up to do.
Tuesday: Our day began with breakfast before we moved from our 1st floor, pool-side room to a 3rd floor room that had the best view of the ocean at the Home2 Suites. Now set for a final 24-hours, we got ourselves dressed for our second bicycle ride around the island.
In what was essentially a repeat of Monday’s ride, we headed-off with mild, upper 60F temps and a brisk 17mph wind on a lovely, sunny day.
We headed south on the paved bike trail and then jumped-off onto the sand-covered off-road trails that made their way through almost a tunnel of trees on the mostly undeveloped south end of the island. Honestly, the addition of the unpaved riding on the south end of the island has truly transformed the quality of our riding around Jekyll. While it reduced our total ride distance from 24-miles for the out-and-back ride around the north end of the island by about 4-miles, it’s just so enjoyable when we get to disappear into the very lightly-used off-road trails that meander through natural, now overgrown area that’s dotted with small marshlands and ponds.
Having done most of our exploring on yesterday’s ride, today’s ride was all about just enjoying the views and taking our time since this was today’s primary activity. The only other tours we could take were of the Roosevelt’s ‘Indian Mound’ Cottage which we’d done while honeymooning on the island back in 1993 or of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel which was a distinct possibility, if not on this trip perhaps on a subsequent trip. The latter could come as early as late November or early December as we’d very much like to see the island all lit-up for the Christmas holiday now that we’ve seen how much time and effort they put into decorating the island, never mind that the rates are reasonable.
Serendipity: The luck some people have in finding or creating interesting or valuable things by chance.
While out for our late morning, daily tandem bicycle ride and on a whim, we decided to add a stop at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel to see how much it changed since July 1993 when we spent our honeymoon there. After parking our bike next to the porte-cochere, we climbed the steps to the covered porch, walked around the club house to find the old hotel entrance and as we came around a corner much to our absolute surprise found my former boss and retired Lockheed executive Ross Reynolds and his wife Debby enjoying some quiet time reading in the shade of the covered porch above the courtyard. No, I failed to get a photo, but I will say Ross looks unchanged, they both look great, are doing well and continue to enjoy life on both the east and west coasts, with Jekyll Island being a regular place to visit now and again.
After spending a good 30-minutes catching up with Ross and Debby, we headed-off for the 2nd half of our ride, with a lunch stop at Tortuga Jacks — surprise, surprise — before the short ride back to our hotel where I put the tandem away for the last time on this trip.
Wednesday: Unlike our original plan for Tuesday when we’d get in one final tandem ride before heading home in the early afternoon, we had ourselves up and packed before we headed down to breakfast at 7:30am and were on-our-way home by 8:00am.
The road-trip home was both uneventful and traffic-free with just two-stops: one right before we jumped on the interstate after leaving Jekyll, and then at around the 1/2-way point in Dublin, Georgia 2-1/2 hours later on our 354-mile, 5-1/2-hour drive.
It was good to be home as neither of us had any desire to head-out for dinner or anywhere else for that matter. We just unloaded the truck, unpacked and Debbie ran over to Publix to pick-up some fried chicken — comfort food, if you will — for dinner.
The Entry BridgeThe Great LawnThe Manor HouseMiss DebbieThe Manor House PoolThe View of Mount OglethorpeThe Grandchildren GardenMy Butterfly GirlsLilies, Roses & Crepe MyrtlesThe Japanese GardensThe Water Lillie GardensDaffodils & Wildflowers
Well, it was great to get away and do so without a firm schedule of places we needed to be at a certain time, or things that had to be done even on specific day. No, this was definitely a “make it up as we go along” trip… perhaps our first and we’ll definitely do it again. It was just enough structure to pick when we’d leave — being sure there wasn’t anything going-on with the kids and grandkids, etc. that we needed to attend or attend to — with just places where we wanted to go and a loose idea of what we’d do there, where the only very structured “stop” was The Brumos Collection on Friday, as they’re only open three days a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Monday, October 3rd:
We headed off to Savannah at 10:00am, and while we had a good bit of traffic through our local Marietta area Interstate 75 South and then in downtown Atlanta as well as south of Atlanta near Jonesboro, it was otherwise smooth sailing for the four-and-a-half hour drive to Savannah with just one stop.
I’d asked the GPS/Google Maps to take us to the Hampton Inn in the Savannah Historic District, but didn’t add the street name. Sure enough, there are two Hampton Inn’s in the Historic District and it took us to the wrong one. After attempting to check-in and being told we didn’t have a reservation, the host suggested we might have booked our room at the Hampton Inn on Bay Street, a few miles away and very close to the Wharf area. We found our way to the right Hampton Inn and it was a really, really nice location at a very well run-Hampton Inn, albeit with nearly mandatory valet parking given where it was located.
After getting checked into our room on the Bay Street side of the 5th floor, we headed to the Wharf area in search of a late lunch stop and found our way to Bernie’s Oyster House: it was just our kind of place. Debbie had a Crab Cake and I had the raw oysters. From there we wandered east in search of Forsythe Park — about a mile-long walk from the Wharf –– and it was a lovely way to spend our afternoon.
We not only saw Forsythe Park, but also many other interesting sights, to include a coupe of the homes that were featured in the Clint Eastwood directed movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil which had a lot to do with our return visit to Savannah for the first time in many years.
We made a stop at our hotel room so I could firm up our Architectural History Tour on Tuesday morning at 10:00am with Jonathan Stalcup, and just to relax for a while before heading back to the Wharf area for dinner.
We’d hoped to have dinner at the Boars Head restaurant but when doing our survey of the diner places along the wharf we found they were only open on Tuesday through Saturday. Instead, we ended up going to Fiddler’s Crab House as they had really interesting-looking recipes for their Oysters Rockefeller and Shrimp & Grits on their menus; we were not disappointed! Both were wonderful.
From there we made our way back to our hotel and very comfortable, but noisy room. Sadly, Bay Street has a steady stream of truck traffic all night long, which was hard to ignore. The HVAC was also noisy and disruptive, so neither of us slept as well as we’d hoped: something to keep in mind for future visits, as we’ll be back sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, October 4th:
Owens Thomas “Tabby” House
We were both up and had breakfast well before our 10:00am tour start time, but had secured a 12:30pm late check-out, so it was a relaxing morning where we were actually having to kill some time before our scheduled Architectural History Tour. However, it was well worth the time we spent waiting and on the tour. We learned a lot about Savannah that fed into how it was developed and in just the space of a few blocks gained a lot of knowledge about the city and architecture. It was so well-worth our time and the $60.00 fee. We’ve ordered a copy of Jonathan’s book on Savannah as well as a few others. Again, we’ll definitely be coming back in the not too distant future.
Next up was checking-out and making the 90-minute drive to Jekyll Island where we’d be spending the next three nights. Note that, for this particular “vacation” I didn’t make our Savannah reservations until two nights before we departed, and didn’t make our Jekyll reservations until Monday night: we truly had no firm plans or scheduled events for this trip vs. our Washington, D.C., museum “agenda” which was way to ambitious. The “making-it-up as we went along approach has worked-out well. I booked us into the relatively new Hilton Home2Suites opened in 2019 in the relatively new Jekyll Beach Village Center opened in 2010, and it was wonderful.
Our View from Tortuga Jacks
We knew we’d have a late lunch and we opted to walk about a half-a-mile to Tortuga Jack’s and it turned out to be our go-to-place for our time at Jekyll. Our bar keeper at their massive Tiki Bar facing the ocean — Jorge — became a fast-friend who took care of us several more times during our visit. The food was very good, the cocktails quite nice but the view of the Atlantic from the bar is what made it all worth the expense… it was not cheap eating and drinking on the resort town economy, any more than the lodging. But, I think I’ve gotten over the idea of trying to be frugal at this stage of our lives. We might as well enjoy doing things like this while we’re “young” in our mid-60’s while we still can and clearly have the resources to do so, versus waiting for….??? Yeah, that’s the rub, what are we waiting for?
After our lunch, we did a little more exploring, did something of a reconnaissance ride around the island to get a feel for the bike trails, and decided to head to the Driftwood Grill and Bistro for dinner, based on a Top-10 list of restaurants at Jekyll Island. We were a bit put-off at first as unlike our experience at home where we can go and hang-out in the bar and wait for seats to open-up, every seat in the restaurant was “reserved” and had to be booked by the host. We ended-up waiting 40 minutes for a seat at the bar to open-up, but it ultimately worked-out to be well worth-it. Our barkeeper Pam was great, she made a wonderful frozen cocktail for Debbie and our Shrimp & Grits were better than the ones we’d had in Savannah the previous night, and those were really, really good. So, it was a great night out, once again.
Wednesday, October 5th:
Thankfully, the new Hilton Home2 Suites and careful selection of our room afforded us a very peaceful night’s rest, the first time in several hotel stays. We began our day on with breakfast at the hotel, and it was quite good even for a hotel buffet.
Our plan for the day made-up last night was to head-off on our Fandango fat-tire, off-road tandem for a 20+ mile ride around the island on the paved bike path. I’d looked at the path details and decided we’d probably be better off riding just the 10-miles from the Beach Village Center to the Historic District along the north coast of Jekyll Island and then doubling-back instead of riding all the way around the island based on what we learned when we drove around the island yesterday afternoon. Wow, what a great ride that was.
We headed-off around 10:00am with temps in the mid-60’s under sunny skies and the ride was better than expected, taking us to parts of the island we’d never had seen just driving around. Our 10-mile ride to the Historic District took us along the eastern coast of the island in view of the ocean, then inland for a few miles through some of the single home and condo/townhouse neighborhoods before it popped-us back out along the historic “Driftwood Beach” with its iconic driftwood formed as a result of decades of erosion and ocean incursion. What was once a maritime forest is now a sandy shore on the north end of the island lined with weathered tree trunks and branches, creating a forest of sun-bleached, dead oak tree trunks after the supporting soil with its nutrients and protection was washed-away and deposited on the south end of the island and on other barrier islands. From there we made our way to the historic district where we took a quick look at some of the “cottages” from the original club-years built between 1904 and the 1930’s depression era when the entire 5,500 acre island was a private club / corporation owned collectively by wealthy investors from all over the U.S.. We’ll come back tomorrow for a more detailed tour, but it made for a nice place to make a couple photo stops before making our way back the 11-miles to where we began our ride in our hotel parking lot.
Well, there was yet another stop at Tortuga’s Tiki Bar for lunch at 11:45pm, where we once again found Jorge who took great care of us. After lunch we returned to the hotel and spent a good hour relaxing by the pool, getting our first “sun” in many, many months if not years.
After getting some of that sun — and as I worked through the issues with my missing pension check with Lockheed’s Customer Service Folks and the Edward Jones folks — we cleaned up a bit and headed back to Tortuga Jack’s for a cocktail with Jorge and then on to the Beach House & Tap House for dinner. While we considered splitting a 16oz Rib Eye, as well as a a salad with chicken and Ahi Tuna appetizer, we ended-up having pizza. It’s not what we needed, but it’s what we wanted! And, best of all, we ran into an older couple from north Georgia who we had a delightful time chatting with while also getting great service from Anna at their bar.
We also somewhat planned our Thursday, which may begin with another 20-mile ride in the morning before cleaning-up and heading to the Historic District for lunch at the Wharf and a tour in the afternoon. But, we’re also thinking about extending our stay and instead of checking-out on Friday morning before making the 90-minute drive to Jacksonville to visit the Brumos Auto Collection and then heading home — a 6-hour drive — and return to Jekyll for one more late afternoon, dinner and night before making a 5-hour drive home on Saturday.
Thursday, October 6th:
Well, it was not as restful of a night as last night as I’d hoped, having fallen asleep somewhat early only to find myself awake around midnight. I quietly moved to the sitting area and spent a couple hours reading before I was able to go back to bed and sleep, getting in more than enough sleep, albeit still not as sound as I’d like. Debbie slept well until around 4:30am, and then found herself awake for a while.
Regardless, we were up and had breakfast by 9:00am, and then headed-out for our second 22-mile bike ride on the lovely bike trails at Jekyll Island around 9:30am with temps in the mid-60’s lots of sun and a light breeze. We made a short stop at the “Mosaic” center, the Jekyll Island History & Tour Center to check on their tours and were still undecided if we’d take a formal “trolley” tour or just do our own walking tour before heading back to the other side of the island.
On our way back we talked a bit more about our plans for Friday and whether to head down to Jacksonville — about a 90-minute drive — visit the Brumos Collection / Auto Museum, and then make the 6-hour drive home afterwards, getting us home around 8:30pm – 9:00pm that night, assuming no traffic issues… Or, perhaps returning to Jekyll Island for one more night at the Home2Suites where we’ve been for the past two nights, and then having a 5.5-hour drive home on Saturday morning…. Or, perhaps just spending the night in Jacksonville after visiting the museum before heading home on Saturday.
To make a long story short, we opted to spend the night in Jacksonville at a Hampton Inn on the beach, but my initial on-line reservation was a bit fouled-up and it took a good 30-minutes on the phone with Brandi at the Jacksonville Hampton Inn getting everything sorted-out. So, assuming all goes to plan, we have a room in Jacksonville on the beach at a Hampton Inn with a restaurant and lounge, so after our visit to the Brumos we should be able to resume our “no pressure” vacation without leaving the hotel until 9:00am on Saturday morning for what will hopefully be a low-traffic, uneventful 5.5-hour drive that will put us home comfortably in the afternoon.
With tomorrow’s plan figured-out, we headed-over to The Wharf restaurant in the Historic District of the Jekyll Island Club for a light lunch and then opted to do our own, self-led walking tour of the cottages and club grounds after picking up a walking tour guide book at the Jekyll Island Arts Association Arts Center at the “Goodyear Cottage” where Debbie also found a few little mementos. We had a lovely, low-key afternoon and probably walked a good two-miles following our walking guide past all of the cottages and other landmarks at the club, including the San Souci Apartments where we spent our Honeymoon back in mid-July 1993.
As much as we tried, we were unable to find a place for an afternoon cocktail that was as enjoyable a Tortuga Jack’s so that’s where we ended-up yet again. Jorge took care of us and we met a lovely couple from the Red Bank New Jersey area who we had a delightful time talking with while enjoying the beachfront bar’s view of the Atlantic, a couple cocktails and then had dinner yet again. It was the usual, resort-priced dining experience, but what the heck. We’ve been having a great time, had good company, great food and great memories.
We were back at our hotel by 6:30pm where Debbie fell asleep watching the PGA Shriner’s Children’s Open and I captured my recollection of our day’s adventure here in the Barrier Islands of Southeast Georgia on Jekyll Island.
Friday, October 7th:
It was another relaxing, enjoyable morning with breakfast the Hilton Home2 Suites before we checked-out and made the very easy, 90-minute drive over to The Brumos Collection (the actual name for the museum) in Jacksonville. It was not as easy to find as I would have thought, very much off the beaten path and something you had to be looking for, while also using GPS. But, so worthwhile. In fact, after spending several days doing more research, editing and posting over 460 photos to a blog “scrapbook” with over 12,000 words, I’d say I’m somewhat obsessed by it. Well, was… I’m finally beginning to “move-on” to other things as of October 16th. But, it was perhaps the most historically significant collection of cars I’ve ever seen in one place, and the museum building was spectacular as well, with many innovative and informative features at every corner, to include their website that became part of this past week’s, follow-on “tour” of 14 additional vehicles that had been displayed along with the 47 we saw during our two-and-a-half-hour visit. And, yes… we were both physically and mentally exhausted when we left around 1:45pm and headed-off in search of a late lunch.
As we made our way to the Beach and then north towards where our hotel was located, we found a recently opened Margaritaville Hotel and Landshark Pub that provided us with yet-another beach-side place to enjoy a meal while looking out at the ocean. The food was great, the bar was inside out of the breezy, cool air we were “enjoying” following Hurricane Ian and like Savannah, Jekyll and the other parts of Jacksonville we’d seen on our trip, nothing looked the worse for wear from the hurricane which was at tropical storm strength and well-off-shore by the time is passed these area.
Our hotel wasn’t much further north and it far-exceeded our expectations in all respects, even for being a somewhat older hotel that was a little tired. My mistake in initially booking the room is probably what allowed us to find a room for just the one night and it was comfortable and quiet. I was also confident our hotel hostess had also “fixed” my mistake which gave me piece of mind, while putting us in a room with a view of the ocean… not that we spent much time enjoying that view. As noted earlier, one of the things that attracted me to this Hampton Inn was that it was basically a resort with a pool area separated from a “Tiki Bar” on the beach and a full-service / menu restaurant. So, once we arrived and settled-in to the hotel, there was no need to leave. We merely headed down to the Tiki Bar, found some beach-side seats where we continued to enjoy our views of the Atlantic Ocean and had a wonderful time, even running into a gal named with a name-tag that read “Ramsey” which prompted me to ask if that was here name, or did she happen to have lived in Ramsey, New Jersey. It was the latter… she was from Ramsey, a very popular place to be from for folks who had relocated to the areas we’d been visiting as we’d encountered several folks from northern New Jersey.
Saturday, October 8th:
We were up somewhat early as I wanted to get on the road and be home before Saturday afternoon traffic built on Interstate 75 North. It was a mostly uneventful and easy drive back to the Atlanta area. The Express Lanes made getting through the traffic that always builds just south of Atlanta relatively easy, but then it became a mess. There was traffic in downtown Atlanta, gridlock on I-75 through Marietta and when we tried to do an end-run around the Interstate 285 perimeter, it too was gridlocked. Fortunately, we jumped-off at Camp Creek Parkway and took backroads home, mostly on Thornton Avenue through Lithia Springs and Powder Springs and we actually arrived at home pretty much “on-time” with out detour.
Back at the house we got luggage out but didn’t really unpack; we just de-compressed from the long drive, got caught-up on mail — and yes, my missing pension checks were in the hold mail, so that was a good thing to see — and ended-up having a quiet night at home. Lord knows, we’d been out to eat every night for the past week and it was just good to be home.
While Debbie decompressed with college football, I headed to the office to begin work on my Brumos Collection photos, some 330 that I needed to download, crop and then reduce in size to minimize the amount of disk server storage space they’d take up and so as not to make them so high quality that folks might think a “virtual tour” of the Brumos could possibly replace an in-person visit.
This week’s journal looks like it will be a travel journal, since so much of it will be consumed by our 5-day, 4 night stay in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday through Saturday, followed by Saturday afternoon and evening in Annapolis, Maryland, before heading to visit my folks in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
Getting Ready for Our Trip:
Monday was all about getting ready for being away from the house for 11-days on our first, honest-to-goodness tourist trip in over two-years, coinciding with our 29th wedding anniversary on July 16th. From 2014-2019 we’d ridden our motorcycle to Key West, Florida, four times where we celebrated our anniversary, intermixed with an all-inclusive resort visit to Cancun for our 25th / Silver Anniversary in 2018. So, having spent the last two years celebrating close to home, this would be a very different type of anniversary trip.
I began the day in my office taking care of some home finance business and publishing last week’s journal, while Debbie headed-off to “run errands” of an undisclosed nature. I finished-up in the office before 9:30am, intending to head off for a 15-mile bicycle ride from the house, but when I walked out to the mailbox to post this week’s journal, son-of-a-gun if we weren’t having light rain. So, on to Plan B.
I went ahead and got all of my clothing for the trip out and ready to be packed, while waiting for the lawn to dry so I could mow it one last time before we headed out-of-town, optimistically thinking I might be able to get by without having someone mow the lawn while we were gone. When I headed out to do the yard work, imagine my surprise when the lawn had grown as much in four-days as it had in seven-days last week, so it was clear I’d need to find someone to mow the lawn about half-way through our visit.
Having always been impressed by how-well the landscaping service that took care of our neighbor’s Ed & Liz’ lawn, I walked up their hill and knocked on the door to ask Liz for the name and number of their landscaper. My hope was, since their landscape crew usually came out on Saturday, they’d be able to add-in our lawn service for just the one day without throwing off their whole schedule since we were right across the street. Liz gave Julian a head’s-up via text message that I’d be reaching-out to him, and once I saw her note had gone out I sent along my detailed request. It was around 9:30pm before he replied and confirmed they’d be able to take-care of our needs: I’d just leave a check under the front mat. So, that was a load off my mind. I’m sure our lawn will be long and wooly when we get back on Friday the 22nd, but at least it won’t be out-of-control.
After finishing-up my own lawn work I headed up on the porch roof to clear off the large collection of branches that had fallen there. While I was up there I ended-up removing the foam gutter fillers that, in theory, kept leaves out of the gutters, but had now become a problem. I’ll have to remove the rest of the foam gutter fillers once we’re back and then re-evaluate how to deal with our gutters before fall. Lord knows, it’s not the most pressing project I have in my queue.
Debbie returned home mid-afternoon after going shopping for some comfortable shoes to wear while we walked-around Washington, D.C., and also picked up some new casual shorts. She’d run quite a few other errands and had most of her clothing picked-out for the trip, but it was one of those afternoons when we both agreed, it would be a good night to get out-of-the-house for dinner instead of grilling and staying-in. Yes, we’d be eating out quite a bit for the next week but, well… just doing our part to help out the service industry in what is still a trying time.
After enjoying some delicious buffalo chicken wraps and a few too many cocktails, we returned home where I cleaned-up a few errors in my history blogs that were bothering me and then headed to bed around 9:00pm to read and, hopefully, fall asleep… something I rarely do before travelling. Debbie came up a short while later.
Our Drive to D.C. and First Evening at the Hilton, Washington DC at the National Mall and The Wharf, on L’Enfant Plaza
Sadly, like most nights before a trip, I did not sleep well and found myself awake by 1:00am, and by 3:00am gave up and headed into the office so as not to disturb Debbie with my tossing and turning. It was around 4:30am when I headed back to bed to get 45-minutes of “rest” before Debbie’s alarm went off at 5:15am. I didn’t take us long to get ready for our drive, finish packing and we were out the door by 5:45am, per our original plan.
My GPS tried to take us south to I-285 around Atlanta, and then up I-85 through Greenville and Charlotte to I-95 since it would — in theory — save us 2-minutes of drive time vs. taking our usual I-75N route through Tennessee to I-40E at Knoxville and then I-81N to the D.C. area. How on Earth it could be a “better” drive going through three major metro areas between 6:00am and 10:00am on the main interstate used by commuters was a mystery to me. So, we ignored the GPS recommendation and enjoyed a very nice, easy and uneventful drive with light to moderate truck traffic through Tennessee, and very few FedEx trucks, on a day with overcast skies that didn’t turn partly sunny until noon time when we stopped for lunch in Wytheville at their Applebee’s. We’d stopped at his same Applebee’s for the first time on our trip-up to Pennsylvania in May and the same, delightful and very efficient barkeeper, Salina, was working and took great care of us.
On our second leg of the trip after lunch, Debbie gave my mother a call to let her know how we were doing and to confirm our travel plans, i.e., arriving at their place in Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoon. Debbie handled the call as it’s just a better quality call than using the hands-free system in the truck, but she did note that mother sounded good, but wasn’t all that talkative.
As we got closer to Washington, we had three different route options: I-64, I-66 and a collection of state highways in between, so we opted to take I-64 to I-95 into D.C., Interestingly enough, we were re-routed up U.S. 15 to I-66 as I-95 was apparently a mess and backed-up: thank goodness for GPS. Our “alternate route” delivered us right to the front door of the hotel at 4:30pm and the valet service was awesome, well worth the $55/day, our front desk agent was also wonderful and gave us a great tip on where to go for cocktails / dinner: Tiki TNT. For the record, we paid $4.04/gas for gas in Kennesaw before we left on the trip, $4.35/gal in mid-Tennessee, and $4.65/gal in Virginia near Charlottesville.
After getting settled in our room, which was on an upper floor with a nice southwest view that included a glimpse at The Wharf on the Washington Channel, just east of the Potomac River, we made a brief stop at the hotel bar and quickly dismissed that as an option as it was filled with hotel guests on business travel and expense accounts talking shop.
Debbie suggested we go elsewhere, so we made the short 4/10th of a mile / 8-minute walk to The Wharf and quickly found the Tiki TNT bar our hotel front desk agent suggested.
It was definitely our kind of place, but seeing the weather turning ugly, I ran back and got the umbrella out of our truck which was still parked out-in-front of the valet stand. But, good that the truck was out there as we had a strong thunder shower come through and it was still drizzling after we’d had out cocktails and a couple of appetizers as our dinner: ahi poke and coconut shrimp; both were excellent. Debbie even opted for a cinnamon bun for dessert.
After our walk back to the hotel under the cover of the very large, full-size umbrella I keep tucked behind the backseat of the truck, we went up to our room and relaxed for a bit. I’d thought about heading out to the mall to see it at night, but with the rain, etc., and after our 10-hour drive, staying in seemed like a good call for our 1st night.
Wednesday: Exploring the Mall, & Visits to the Holocaust & American History Museums
I didn’t sleep all that well, despite being a very comfortable bed. It was likely due to the HVAC system’s blower running all night and the inability to raise our room temperature setting above 76°F, never mind raising the actual room temperature above 72°F.
Regardless, our plan for the day was to visit the Holocaust Museum in the morning, and then walk to all of the memorials and monuments on the west-end of the National Mall, and then visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History and then the National History Museum next door. However, the main feature of the Holocaust Museum was a tour through the 1935-1945 Holocaust experience which required a ticket.
With regard to the tickets, when we first decided to make our trip in late June, just about every day we’d be in D.C. was “sold out,” but it was noted a small number of tickets would be available on-line at 7:00am each day, as well as another small number “at the door.” Well, I woke up at 6:00am and began checking, just in case they might “open-up” the ticket sales early, but no luck. When I logged-in again promptly at 7:00am and attempted to buy our two $1.00/ea tickets, the system balked. On a subsequent retry, no tickets were now available, so my idea of was not a unique one. With that in mind, and since the museum didn’t open until 10:00am, we modified our plan to leave at 8:00am and do our 6-mile walk around the mall before seeing if we might be able to snag a pair of tickets at the door to the Holocaust Museum.
Our 4.2-mile Morning Walk, 8:00am until 10:30am
Moongate Garden: Our walk from the Hilton to the Smithsonian Castle was all of 0.3-miles / 6-minutes north on 9th street. Our first stop was the Moongate Gardens with its dragonfly sculptures at the northeast corner of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. It was a lovely installation recalling another historic garden and highlighting the history of the dragonfly and damselfly.
The Washington Monument: From there, we walked west along the great lawn of the mall towards the Washington Monument. As always, the Washington Monument is an epic, marble structure that evokes all kinds of metaphors for President George Washington: understated in architectural detail, but overwhelming in it’s presence and imagery… much like the man. From a distance it centers you on the National Mall, and up close it’s size and scale to the surrounding land and building scape is immense. It’s just one of those artistic creations like the Mona Lisa that you just want to gaze-upon and “take-in” to understand what the artist had mind. Interestingly enough, work on the Washington Monument began in 1847, but came to a standstill in 1858 due to the lack of funds, and then the Civil War. After the Civil War, there were all kinds of political and social elite “issues” that delayed construction until it resumed in earnest in 1877 and was finished in 1884, 29 years after the Smithsonian Castle was built.
The World War II Memorial: From the Smithsonian Castle, we walked another 0.8-miles / 16-minutes to the World War II memorial, one of the memorials Debbie and I visited many years ago on or one-day / 6-hour “National Lampoon – Summer Vacation Grand Canyon-like” visit to Washington, D.C.. The World War II monument is amazing, and so-well executed in terms of the visual experience it evokes with so many features that address the European and Pacific Theaters of War, the 56 states and territories of the U.S. that existed in 1945. It was incredibly well done and warrants respect. I could spend hours at this monument taking in the visual aspects of it’s design and imagery.
The Signers of the Declaration of Independence: Despite having visited Washington D.C. and the National Mall several times from the 1970s to the 1990’s, I never realized there was a Constitution Gardens Pond to the north of the reflecting pond, as well as a Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial. It’s only because I saw it on the Google Maps application that we made the 0.2-mile / 5-minute walk to this often-overlooked memorial. Sadly, five of the signers were captured by the British and treated as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war. But, few know who all 56 were, and this memorial recognizes them and is perhaps one of the most important “pieces” of this nation’s history. They signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor, and many paid for it. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
The Vietnam Memorials: Next-up was the Vietnam Memorials… a mere 0.3-miles from the signers memorial, where the well-known, black granite wall with the 57,939 names of killed or missing U.S. citizens who fought on the wall. It’s one of those memorials like the Washington Monument that makes you just take a step back to take it all in. And, the Vietnam memorial was not the first memorial in Washington, D.C. to recognize Americans by-name who died in a war. There’s the Washington, D.C. World War I Memorial that recognizes by name the 26,000 residents of D.C., who gave their lives in World War I dedicated in 1931. Regardless, the 60,000 names on the Vietnam memorial are humbling, as is the Vietnam memorial statue just southwest of the wall with the three soldiers looking towards the center of the wall, representing “all Americans” who fought for the U.S. in Vietnam. There is also the women’s Vietnam Memorial just east of the three soldiers that’s as impactful as anything else you’ll find on the Mall.
The Lincoln Memorial: Our next stop was the Lincoln Memorial, 0.6-mile and 9-min away. I’ve visited the Lincoln Memorial perhaps 5 times in my life, and the impact is never diminished. There is so much symbolism and his Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address are, well, timeless. And, despite the signs posted everywhere that suggests “be quiet and respectful” we had a lone individual camped-out in front of the seated statue of Abraham Lincoln having a one-sided conversation with Lincoln that somewhat “killed the moment” as he exercised his1st Amendment Right to freedom of speech. And, in some respects, that was a great reminder of how our Constitution works to support individual rights vs. individual desires. I desired a quiet and respectful environment, but someone’s rights trumped my desires. That’s not a bad thing, in the big scheme of things.
Korean War Memorial: Just to the southeast of the Lincoln Memorial is the Korean War Memorial, and it may be more impactful than the Vietnam Memorial. The original memorial with 19 statues of U.S. service members walking through a rice paddy, and a soon-to-be-dedicated, 36,000-name circular memorial with the names of US service members and Korean Augmentation of U.S. troops who gave their lives during the U.S. Police Keeping Action in Korea. It was never a declared war, and the numbers of U.N. nation service members who gave their lives are included on the memorial. It’s a very powerful memorial to one of the least-understood conflicts, at least by most younger Americans.
The D.C. World War I Memorial: Next-up was the half-mile walk to the Washington, D.C. War memorial, the only District memorial on the National Mall. It symbolizes the unique distinction of Washington, D.C. as a local entity even though it is the federal city. Construction of the monument was completed in 1931 and the memorial was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover on the national observance of Armistice Day, November 11, 1931 with the names of 499 D.C. residents who died in World War I. There was no national monument for World War I until April 16, 2021 when the formal unveiling of the memorial that honors the 4.7 million Americans who served their nation in World War I, including 116,516 who made the supreme sacrifice took place.
Martin Luther King Memorial: The memorial’s was dedicated on August 28, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and is based on a quoted line from his “I have a dream” speech, “Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope.” A wall of quotes spanning Dr. King’s long civil rights career represents his ideals of peace, democracy, justice, and love. It was also a very impactful, visual experience to both of us… as intended by the artist and memorial planning group who selected it’s location and the final design.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial: The FDR Memorial uses stone, water, and landscaping to capture key elements of FDR’s four terms as president in a very approachable way. His most impactful quotes are at eye level and the statues are at or close to ground level. The memorial is made-up of five outdoor rooms, one as a prologue and four for each of FDR’s terms in office. The water features and the stones set the tone during different times in his presidency, from the placid pools of reflection to waterfalls of chaos. This was one of the most appealing memorials I can recall visiting.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial: The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated on April 13, 1943, Jefferson’s 200th birthday, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It’s interesting to note that the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission (TJMC) initially decided the Jefferson memorial would be placed at Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues in their initial resolution on June 26, 1934. In 1936, President Roosevelt decided the planned site was too small and the TJMC allowed FDR to select a new location, which is where it now sits on the Tidal Basin. The first statue of Jefferson was cast in plaster due to World War II restrictions on the use of metals, and was replaced with a the 19-foot tall, bronze statue in 1947 that stands on a 6-foot-tall pedestal of black Minnesota granite. The memorial has been “renovated” several times in the past and was undergoing yet another during our visit. It’s perhaps the least impactful of the monuments around the National Mall, at least to me, but still a must-see.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The museum was dedicated on April 22, 1993, and is one of the most-visited museums in Washington, D.C., providing a fact-based interpretation of Holocaust with the goal of helping all people confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy. It is managed the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (USHMC), an independent entity with its own governance structure, but regularly participates in joint projects with the Smithsonian. In terms of our experience, as noted, after taking a short sit-down break at the museum’s café to cool-off and hydrate shortly after 10:00am, we were able to secure 10:30am start-time tickets to the permanent and central Holocaust exhibit at the museum and are so glad we did: it’s a must-see experience. It was somewhat overwhelming at times, even though it’s a story I know fairly well, but not to the extent that was clearly conveyed in the exhibit. We were so consumed and mentally exhausted by the main exhibit, we didn’t visit the other 5 exhibits and, instead, headed back to the museum café for lunch, and it was actually pretty good.
Our 1.5-mile Afternoon Walk, Noon until 3:30pm, not including the Miles We Covered in the Museums
Smithsonian National Museum of American History: We made the half-mile walk to the American History Museum after lunch, fully-planning on visiting it and the Natural History Museum during the afternoon. However, after walking what must have been at least a mile inside the American History Museum, never mind all of the standing and reading that goes hand-in-hand with a museum visit, we’d seen perhaps half of the exhibits that were open and available over the course of two-hours and were exhausted, both physically and mentally. So, we knew there was no way we’d be visiting the Natural History Museum today and, instead, walked across the mall to the Smithsonian Castle’s gardens and made our way to the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden.
Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden: Debbie had been told by Julie that the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden was a must-see during our visit, and given it was only 3:00pm and only a half-mile walk from the American History Museum, we decided to head that way. I really didn’t know what to expect and was quite surprised by their outdoor sculpture collection, both in terms of the scope of the different works and years when they were cast, many in the 1950’s to the 1960’s, based on much-earlier designs. It was well-worth the time we spent there.
Late Afternoon and Dinner: As we did last evening, we returned to our hotel room to relax for a bit, and then headed back to the Tiki TNT bar where we found our barkeeper, Johnny, from last night tending the front bar. We had a cocktail, but decided we’d investigate our dining-options along The Wharf and walked the 1/2-mile length of Wharf Street, checking-out the menus at several “interesting-looking” restaurants. Sadly, none of the places seemed all that inviting, and then we discovered the Cantina Bambina, a 2nd story bar on the water with two really engaging and enjoyable barkeepers: the two Beths. One was an ‘Elizabeth’ and the other a “Bethany” but both went by the name Beth. We camped-out there for a couple hours, snacking on Jalapeno & Pimento cheese dip, noting the bar didn’t serve “food” per se. But, we were more than welcome to bring-in food and ended-up ordering a take-out burger from the “Shake Shack” across the street and it was really good and just what we needed. It was probably about 8:00pm when we returned to the Hilton and retired to our room where we caught a movie before turning-out the lights.
Thursday: The Natural History, American History Part II & Smithsonian Castle
My original plan for Thursday was to head-off to the Arlington National Cemetery just across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, then do a drive-by of the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, head into Alexandria for lunch at Gadsby’s Tavern, and then head to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum next to Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, noting the in-town Air & Space Museum on the National Mall was closed for renovation during our visit. However, given how much we’d only accomplished and seen on Wednesday, my sense was we’d be better-off using our day to make sure we visited the Natural History Museum on the mall, and then finished-up the American History Museum, letting us relax in our room a until 9:45am, as the museums don’t open until 10:00am. Had we opted for the Arlington National Cemetery that opened at 8:00am, we’d have needed to be up and out of the hotel by 7:45am.
Our 2.0-Mile Walk to the Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall
U.S. Natural History Museum: It was a mere 13-minute, 7/10ths of a mile walk to the museum from our hotel and we didn’t leave until 10:00am, so that we could avoid the crowd that most assuredly gathered at the entrance at 10:00am when it opened. Our first stop in the museum was the indoor butterfly house where we were able to walk through a sealed habitat filled with live butterflies, something Debbie always enjoys. It was no where as nice or as large as the butterfly houses in Key West, Florida, or at Barnsley Gardens back in Georgia, but it was still interesting and enjoyable. Next up was the precious gems collection where we saw the Hope Diamond and many, many other amazing stones, gems and crystals, never mind sheets of natural copper that had leached in between layers of shale. We started to wander through all of the minerals exhibits and Earth Sciences section when we realized we could spend 1/2 a day in there. We changed course and spent the next hour and a half exploring the undersea world exhibits, the African wildlife, the mammals, skeletons and human evolution exhibits before hitting our threshold for absorbing information, and made our way to the museum’s café where we split a very tasty chicken & cheese quesadilla.
U.S. American History Museum: After lunch, we made the short, 5-minute walk “next door” to pick-up where we left-off at the American History Museum. We’d made it through the Civil War yesterday before calling it quits, so that’s where we picked-up. We covered the rest of the war years, post war, and evolution of our nation as well as the “five families / one house” exhibit where an entire home that stood for 200 years at 16 Elm Street in Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 30 miles north of Boston was disassembled and partially rebuilt in the museum, and also visited the Star Spangled Banner exhibit. However, in retrospect, we still didn’t scratch the surface of what all can be seen at the museum. I suspect a full day with a carefully thought-out plan of what to see, exhibit-by-exhibit is what’s called-for, which is to say a lot more homework. Well, that and spending a lot more time visiting the Smithsonian Museum websites for all of these exhibits to help narrow down which ones are “must sees” for our interests. Again, we could make this trip every year for several years and still not see everything at just these two museums, never mind all of the other museums in Washington, D.C..
Smithsonian Castle: In what is perhaps my favorite image of the original Smithsonian Castle, taken in 1883… noting it was built in 1855 and was perhaps one of the only “finished” structures on the National Mall at that time, as work on the Washington Monument that began in 1848, but stalled for 23-years (1854-1877), and wasn’t completed until 1884. While this photo suggests it was taken in 1883, I don’t see the National Museum Building (now the Arts & Industry Museum) to the east of the Castle which was built in 1881. The history of the institution is nearly as interesting as the 100’s of thousands of artifacts that are just on display, never mind millions of artifacts in their total collection. Anyway, we made a point of visiting the castle where they have “sampler” displays of what’s available at the 19 Smithsonian Museums.
Late Afternoon and Dinner: As we did yesterday, we returned to Cantina Bambina after visiting the museums from 10:00am until perhaps 4:00pm. Neither of the Beths were there, but the other gals tending bar were just as attentive and enjoyable. Instead of a burger from the Shake Shack, we split a half of a pepperoni pizza from a very small pizza parlor called “Union Pie” right next to the Cantina Bambina and it was outstanding. We had a wonderful time, just as we did on Wednesday night and are so glad we stumbled onto these neat, little bar. The cost of our cocktails was almost twice as much as they are at Guston’s back at home, making for some hefty tabs, but when in Rome….
Friday: The Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center
Having postponed our travels into Virginia, today started-off at 7:45am with the short, 11-minute drive to Arlington National Cemetery that opened at 8:00am. Our plan for the day was catching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown, then visiting the JFK gravesite with its eternal flame, before taking a drive past the U.S. U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial just to the north of the National Cemetery. From there we’d drive south and have lunch at Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria, Virginia, before heading out to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at the south end of Dulles International Airport. Well, that’s not exactly how it played-out, as we had finished our visit at Arlington just after 10:00am, and Gadsby’s Tavern didn’t open until 11:30am. We decided to pass on Gadsby’s and headed directly to the Udvar-Hazy Center after driving by the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, and planned to grab some lunch there.
Oh the Joys of Driving In and Around Washington, D.C.
JFK Burial Site & Eternal Flame
Arlington National Cemetery: It was a quick and easy drive, actually too easy as we arrived at 7:57am and were told to come back in a few minutes, even to get into the parking garage, which was a bit odd. We made a U-turn as instructed, and then immediately made another one and parked on the shoulder of the road for a couple minutes before jumping in line to enter the Cemetery for the second time in four-minutes. It was good to be there early, as it wasn’t too warm when we made our 7/10ths of a mile / 13-minute hike up Roosevelt Road, past the Joe Louis Memorial, and arrived at the Tomb of the Unknown around 8:20am, just as they were getting ready to have the changing of the guard. But, curiously, there were an awful lot of more senior officers dressed in their Service Uniforms, what the Honor Guards wear. A short time later four platoons of Honor Guards arrived at the base of the steps to the Tomb of the Unknown, a color guard then arrived followed by the U.S. Army Band. I had to ask one of the civilian officials at the Tomb of the Unknown what the reason was, and he advised they were having a wreath-laying ceremony in recognition of the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Guam coming-up on 21 July 1944.
Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown, followed by a Wreath Laying Ceremony
So, we not only were there long enough to see three changing of the guards, but also a full military dress ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown: it was amazing. After the ceremony ended, we made the 1/2-mile walk over to the John F. Kennedy gravesite and eternal flame, before heading back to collect the truck from the parking garage. However, even with staying the extra hour for the wreath-laying ceremony, we were running far too early for having lunch at 11:30 in Alexandria, Virginia as we’d have to find a way to kill 45-minutes, time we could better use at the Air & Space Museum.
U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial: We made the 2-mile-long / 5-minute drive over to the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial so Debbie could see it. We didn’t bother to stop and park to view it from the west side as it’s typically shown and captured in photos, but did take a good photo from the east side as we drove around the circular drive.
The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: It was a 40-minute drive out to Chantilly, Virginia, for our visit’s last museum stop and I was quickly reminded why I dread driving in and around the congested urban areas in the northeast U.S.. The roads all seem to have smaller lanes, interstates and highways seem to crisscross each other time and again, and the use of tolls is frequent and haphazard. I eventually had to draft Debbie to become my navigator and spotter for exits as they all came up without much forewarning and were always on the wrong side of merging traffic: ugg. Anyway, as frustrating as the drive was, the reward was well worth it.
The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy (OOD-var HAH-zee) Center was simply amazing, especially with it’s use of overhead walkways that let you have a bird’s eye view of the 150+ aircraft on display in the massive Boeing hangar: 635 feet in length, 225 feet in width, and 82 feet, 9 inches in height, with some 161,145 square feet of exhibition floor space. Adjacent to the Boeing hangar is the 56,000+ square foot, James S. McDonnell Space Hangar with 135+ space vehicles and rockets on display. Another welcome sight was the Shake Shack-restaurant that likely replaced the museum-run food concession where we split another delicious burger. Again, it’s impossible to describe the museum other than being overwhelming in the size, aircraft collection, display and viewing options… never mind the condition of the aircraft. Best of all was seeing the “workshop” open to viewing from behind glass and well above to capture the “magic” of how these amazing aircraft move from “as found” to restored for display.
It would appear the Hughes H-1 Racer has been moved from the D.C. Mall Air & Space Museum to the Udvar-Hazy Center, or, is in the process of being moved noting it was lacking its wings, landing gear and an information sign.
Our return drive to the Hilton near the National Mall was as equally confounding as the drive out to Dulles, as toll-roads are “hit or miss” experiences. Some roads are flagged as “toll roads” by Google Maps that have expressways with tolls, but not the through traffic, whereas others have “all lanes” as tolls, to include a premium price for the expressway. We ended-up “busting” two of the tolls and attempted to put $3.25 in change in another that failed to acknowledge the mandatory “contribution” to their highway system. However, now that a few days have gone by, I can see that the EZ-PASS system was able to recognize my SUN-PASS from Florida that’s also recognized by Georgia’s tollways, so at least I know I’m not being fined, just paying my tolls in arrears, plus that extra $3.25 in change I literally “tossed-away.”
Late Afternoon and Dinner:
As before, the valet service at the Hilton was well worth it if only to alleviate the need to go and search for parking and then feed a pay-system where the by-the-hour cost was well in excess of the daily $55 valet fee. We merely pulled-up at the Hilton, handed-off our keys and were on the way to our room. From there, you guessed it… we headed back to the Cantina Bambina, once again enhancing their bottom line by a good bit and being generous with our tips. We tried their smoked white fish dip instead of the Jalapeno and Pimento Cheese dip and it was very good too. However, for dinner, we headed back to Tiki TNT where we enjoyed a wonderful chicken wonton snack as our dinner. After that, we were finally able to to make a night time visit to the National Mall before heading back to our hotel for our last night in Washington, D.C..
ENDORSEMENTS
The Hilton, Washington, D.C., National Mall at the Wharf. If we ever return, that’s where we’re staying. The short walks to the Mall and the Wharf, with no need to use a car for transportation makes it worth the added expense. It was perhaps $200 more for our four-night stay than the Holiday Inn two-blocks east and a block north, but location, location, location trumps a few bucks when the Hilton treats you to 4-Star service and attention, vs 3-Star Holiday Inn.
Cantina Bambina on The Wharf. If you’re looking for a beach-bar feel and vibe, this is as close as we could find. It may be the only bar “on the water” other than the Yacht Club’s lounge and, well, we don’t have a $500k cruiser or club membership, so we’re so happy we found Cantina Bambina.
Seeing the Memorials and Monuments. Stay close to the Mall and walk it early in the morning. Lots of joggers and cyclists heading to work in D.C., but not busy or crowded at all. It was us and a handful of other visitors at all of the memorials, not crowds.
The Museums. Trying to figure out how much time to allocate to a museum visit in D.C. is like estimating the cost of building a new home or a major renovation: figure out how much time you think it will take, then double-it and add two.
The Steven F. Udvey-Hazy Center. If you’re an aviation enthusiast, you must visit.
Our day began not all that early, as our plan for the day focused on a 2:00pm trolley tour of Annapolis starting about 3/4 of a mile away from our hotel, the Waterfront Hotel, part of the Marriott’s Autograph Collection. The drive over to Annapolis was about an hour-long, give or take, and we were able to drive right in to the hotel and valet park the truck, check-in and have our bags put in storage pending our room being available later in the afternoon. Best of all, I let the front desk folks know it was our anniversary, and they definitely went the extra mile, which I knew they would at a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel where you’re spending $500/night for a room. It wasn’t 5-minutes when our front desk agent came around the corner with a bottle of Rose wine, chocolates and other niceties in a gift bag acknowledging our anniversary stay, and they definitely went the extra distance on waiting until a room with a wonderful view that wasn’t far from the elevators was available.
That gave us plenty of time to walk over to the Middletown Tavern — a place the kids recommended — where we split a crab cake sandwich for lunch and relaxed a bit before going off to explore the Naval Academy to see if we really wanted to stick-around on Sunday for the waking tour, and still make it to the Trolley Stop for our 1-hour tour of Annapolis at 2:00pm.
We were still undecided about the Naval Academy tour when we boarded the pseudo trolley-car / bus for our 1-hour tour of the city, narrated by the driver who was perhaps one of the best and most knowledgeable tour hosts in Annapolis. He knew everyone in town as we drove around the backstreets to look at the historic architecture, the city buildings, and all sorts of obscure yet fascinating things in and around Annapolis. In fact, his tour was so informative and enjoyable that, by the time we were done, we knew we could pass on Sunday’s walking tour of the Naval Academy: we were museum-toured out.
The Maryland World War II Memorial overlooking the Severn River and U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis
Our tour actually lasted a good hour and 15-minutes and about the time we got off the bus, it was a foot race to see if we could return to our hotel before the rain started to fall. However, we lucked-out, beat the rain and our room was ready when we walked into the lobby. Best of all, the hotel’s on-site bar and restaurant was managed by Pussers, an outfit from the British Virgin Islands we’d come to know back in 2018 when we were invited to join our friends Ryan and Jeanette for a 14-day catamaran cruise around the BVI’s, so we had no problem dropping into Pussers for cocktails and then again when it was time for dinner. We had a wonderful time and avoided the thunderstorms that passed through from 4:00pm until 9:00pm that night.
Sunday: “Vacation’s Over” and it’s on to a Family Visit in Pennsylvania
We had a leisurely morning, ate breakfast at Pussers in the Waterfront Hotel and then began our 1.5-hour / 150-mile drive up to Bernville, Pennsylvania just before 11:00am. It was a much-easier drive than our drives in and around Washington, D.C., and I made a point of getting gas before we left Maryland. The difference was very apparent, as I paid $4.35/gal in Maryland, and as soon as we crossed into Pennsylvania it was $4.75/gal. Closer to my folks home it was $4.59/gal, driven mostly by Pennsylvania’s very high excise and sales taxes.
It was just after 1:00pm when we arrived at my folks home, having stopped at the local Boyer’s grocery to stock up Diet Coke for me and green tea for Debbie. My folks were in very good spirits when we arrived and we had a very nice afternoon chatting and catching up on our trip.
We had salmon for dinner and it was delicious, and just relaxed as we gave a verbal recap of our past few days in Washington, D.C. and Annapolis, Maryland, while watching the R&A Scottish Golf Open finish-up.
Our Travels & Jekyll Island History 