During the Gilded Age and into the twentieth-century, Jekyll Island, Georgia was the retreat of millionaires, the Newport of the South for the captains of industry and finance, their families, and guests. In 1947, the state of Georgia forced the sale of the small, privately-held island to convert it into a “great public beach park.” Celestine Sibley, writing in the New York Times (June 22, 1947) commented that, “When a citizen of Brunswick is feeling opulent, exhilarated and altogether happy with his lot, he does not say he’s sitting on top of the world. He says, instead, ‘I’m settin’ on Jekyll.’”
History of Jekyll Island before the Millionaires’ Club
John Eugene du Bignon purchased the island in 1791 and it remained in the du Bignon family until 1886. The island was originally discovered by the Portuguese and then claimed by the Spanish. Named in honor of Sir Joseph (or Joshua, according to some writers) Jekyll in the early eighteenth-century, the island was part of Georgia colony and a source of indigo and sea island cotton.
During the colonial period, “Blackbeard,” the infamous and colorful pirate Edward Teach, used the island as a hideout. Legends still maintain that Teach buried treasure somewhere along the ten-mile beach. The 1742 Battle of Bloody Marsh between British and Spanish forces took place south of Fort St Simons, across the inlet from the southern shore of Jekyll. Historians maintain that James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony, persuaded a reluctant Parliament that Georgia would serve as a needed buffer against Spain’s expansionist efforts.
Jekyll Island in the 19th and 20th Centuries
The resort of the wealthy was selected by doctors that searched in Europe and North America for an appropriate place to build a resort. Jekyll wasn’t far from New York by railroad and was secluded. An 1889 item in the New York Times reported that, “It has not its equal North or South. The Jekyll Club is certainly a great success, being happily situated above the fever line and in a climate devoid of the lassitude of the more southern points.”
President William McKinley visited Jekyll. In 1910, a small group of bankers met on Jekyll Island with Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich to craft the Federal Reserve System. William Rockefeller, suffering from throat cancer, answered questions from the Pujo Committee in 1913 at his “cottage” on Jekyll; the committee was investigating the money “trusts.” His wife died at Jekyll in January 1920 from heart disease.
The island was evacuated and taken over by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942 to guard against enemy submarine attacks or the possibility of harm befalling the men controlling American commerce and banking that still used the island as a retreat. Although unauthenticated, the last person to sign the Jekyll Island hotel registry was George S. Patton during the 1942 evacuation operation. By the time Georgia condemned the island in order to purchase Jekyll, America’s rich and powerful had found other places to vacation. Additionally, New Deal taxes on high incomes helped end much of the ostentatious living habits of the nation’s wealthiest citizens.
Public Access and Desegregation of Jekyll Island
The Georgia Sea Turtle Center, opened in 2007, represents contemporary conservation efforts. In the nineteenth-century, however, the island was home to deer, turkeys, wild boar, and pheasants. Wild boars were introduced after Ambassador Lloyd C. Griscom was presented with the animals by the king of Italy, contrary to belief that financier J P Morgan introduced the creatures.
Wealthy members of the “club” treated the island as a game preserve, raising pheasants for hunting. The island also featured a golf course and became a yachting destination prior to the state’s taking of Jekyll. The New York Times noted that, “…under the magical power of money the wild island has assumed the character of a little paradise, greatly enhancing its value.” (September 9, 1889)
In 1964, a federal judge ordered the desegregation of all Jekyll facilities. Ironically, Jekyll Island was used to import the last ship-load of slaves into the United State in the early nineteenth-century and housed Southern slaves during the Civil War.
Contemporary Jekyll Island
Visitors to Jekyll Island still enjoy the solitude and non-commercial aspects of a seacoast getaway. The historical center, clustered around the Victorian-era club house, today contains shops and a museum as well as several of the millionaires’ “cottages,” and the small Faith Chapel. Numerous hotels stretch along the beach but hardly resemble the crowded popular spots like Myrtle Beach in South Carolina or Florida’s Daytona Beach.
In Jekyll, there is concern among islanders that unchecked expansion and development will impair the natural beauty and ecological infrastructure. This was the lure that attracted the “richest and most aristocratic club in the United States” but continues as a state-owned playground for everyone to enjoy.
References:
- Tallu Fish, Once Upon an Island: The Story of Fabulous Jekyll (Jekyll Island Museum Associates, 1995)
- Anna Ferguson Hall, “What’s still on the Jekyll Island horizon,” Brunswick News, October 1, 2011
- Podger, “Jekyll Island Club House,” New York Times, April 14, 1889.
- “Retreat of Numerous Millionaires: Society at Home and Abroad,” New York Times, March 13, 1904.
- Celestine Sibley, “Fabulous Jekyll: Georgia’s Golden Isle, wanted now for state playground has a Strange History,” New York Times, June 22, 1947.
- Wes Ward, “Jekyll Island,” Saturday Evening Post, January/February 1981, Vol. 253, Issue 1
- Eugene Warner, “An Island Playground off the Coast of Georgia,” New York Times, April 3, 1966
- C. E. Wright, “On Jekyll Island Former Millionaires’ Retreat Now Open to the Public off Georgia’s Coast,” New York Times, January 16, 1955
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