Georgia
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300 year old live oak
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Spanish moss
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Crane cottage
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Faith Chapel
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Goodyear cottage
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Indian Mounds cottage - Indian
midden in foreground
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Moss cottage
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DuBignon cottage - the first
house on Jekyll Island
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Halfway through our bicycle tour
of the island
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Jekyll Island beach
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Our only stop in Georgia was
at Jekyll Island State Park located at the far south-east tip of Georgia, right
on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 10 miles long and very narrow. The first
thing you notice when you enter the campground is that everyone has their car
and camper mirrors covered with plastic bags. If you want to know why, just
email me at . 
Jekyll Island is owned by the State of Georgia and administered by a 7 member board of trustees. Their main role is to perserve the old cottages and buildings on the island. They have passed laws to prohibit any future development on the island.
In the late 1800's the island was owned by a Mr. DeBugnon that bought it for a place to build a hunting and fishing cottage (shown above). He soon decided to sell property as a place for northerners to come and get away from the winter snow and temperatures. The original people to buy land were all millionaires and the reputation of the island as a get-a-way soon spread. In 1886, "The Jekyll Island Club" was formed. There were originally 53 members and later grew to 100 members; they limited the membership to 100. To become a member you had to be a millionaire and you had to be invited. Some of the members included family names like, Morgan, Astor, Rockefeller, Vanderbuilt and Pulitzer. As you can tell, it was an elite group. The original idea was for a fishing and hunting lodge and they built a large hotel. Later, as families wanted more privacy, they allowed members to buy property and build their own cottages. Early on there was a restriction that you still had to eat your meals in the main hotel building so a lot of the cottages don't have kitchens. As you can tell, the name "cottage" is a misnomer since most of the "cottages" were 2-3,00 square feet affairs, like those shown above.
Another early feature was that there were no garages, horseless carriages were noisy and they came here to get away from the noise of the city. Later they allowed the horseless carriages, but there were restrictions on what time of the day you could start it. Lois laughed when the guide told about the walled in areas attached to each house. Since these were "very proper" people, you could not hang out your "undies" where others could see them, so you had to build an enclosure to hide your closelines.
The only way to get onto the island was by boat so people came down to Brunswick, GA and then took a boat over. Some of the people, like Rockefeller had their on yachts so they could just pull up to the wharf and get out. Over time, the Rockefeller yacht got so large it could not come into the last channel, so they would have to anchor in the bay and then have their smaller 100 ft. yacht come out and get them; the larger yacht was 350 ft long. They say the wharf area was a site to behold as the fancy dressed families got off the boats and got into carriages to take them to their cottages.
In 1907, 7 men came down to Jekyll Island in complete secrecy. They included one US Senator, the Secretary of the Treasury and men like J.P. Morgan and other large bank owners. During 10 days of intense negotiations they put together the framework of what would become the Federal Reserve System; they recognised the need to create a way to keep the banking system secure. It took many years before it was passed.
During the active time of the "Club", there were 13 women, millionaires that became members. Some were widows of members and some were millionaires on their own right.
The "Crane" house shown above was owned by a man that had made his fortune in the clothing business. He went through some business troubles and actually had to declare bankruptcy. Since he was no longer a millionaire, he had to give up his membership. He started another business, got his millionaire status and moved back to the island. The business he started is "Lord and Taylor".
The club was active until the 1930's. As the original people died, thier heirs were not interested in the club and let the gradually sold the property to others. Another big impact was the creation of the "Income Tax" in 1913 and the stock crash of 1929.
In 1947, the State of Georgia bought the island for $647 dollars. The majority of heirs had not paid taxes on the property for years so the State just forclosed on them.