St. Simons Island

St. Simons Island
Author: Patricia Morris
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780738515861

From the days of early tribes that hunted and fished to the tourists who later relaxed on the beaches, St. Simons Island has been part of the changing landscape of Georgia's coast. When Gen. James E. Oglethorpe established Fort Frederica to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the threat of Spain, it was, for a short time, a vibrant hub of British military operations. During the latter part of the 1700s, a plantation society thrived on the island until the outbreak of the War Between the States. Never returning to an agricultural community, by 1870 St. Simons re-established itself with the development of a booming timber industry. And by the 1870s, the pleasant climate and proximity to the sea drew visitors to St. Simons as a year-round resort. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a sleepy little place with only a few hundred permanent residents until 1941.

Island Time

Island Time
Author: Jingle Davis
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0820342459

Capturing the history and beauty of a key destination in the land of the Golden Isles... Eighty miles south of Savannah lies St. Simons Island, one of the most beloved seaside destinations in Georgia and home to some twenty thousand year-round residents. In Island Time, Jingle Davis and Benjamin Galland offer a fascinating history and stunning visual celebration of this coastal community. Prehistoric people established some of North America's first permanent settlements on St. Simons, leaving three giant shell rings as evidence of their occupation. People from other diverse cultures also left their mark: Mocama and Guale Indians, Spanish friars, pirates and privateers, British soldiers and settlers, German religious refugees, and aristocratic antebellum planters. Enslaved Africans and their descendants forged the unique Gullah Geechee culture that survives today. Davis provides a comprehensive history of St. Simons, connecting its stories to broader historical moments. Timbers for Old Ironsides were hewn from St. Simons's live oaks during the Revolutionary War. Aaron Burr fled to St. Simons after killing Alexander Hamilton. Susie Baker King Taylor became the first black person to teach openly in a freedmen's school during her stay on the island. Rachel Carson spent time on St. Simons, which she wrote about in The Edge of the Sea. The island became a popular tourist destination in the 1800s, with visitors arriving on ferries until a causeway opened in 1924. Davis describes the challenges faced by the community with modern growth and explains how St. Simons has retained the unique charm and strong sense of community that it is known for today. Featuring more than two hundred contemporary photographs, historical images, and maps, Island Time is an essential book for people interested in the Georgia coast. A Friends Fund publication.

New Moon Rising

New Moon Rising
Author: Eugenia Price
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1596529024

Second Novel in the St. Simons Trilogy. A rich and riveting tale of love, hardship, and the journey for happiness in the war-torn South. In New Moon Rising, Eugenia Price gives us a story of faith and courage that follows the struggle of James Gould's son Horace to find his own place in life. Reaching manhood in the tumultuous years before the Civil War, Horace returns to St. Simons and finds himself disheartened by the intolerance on his beloved island. However, he wins the heart of lovely neighbor Deborah Abbott, who adores her "Mr. Gould" and becomes his wife, despite the difference in their years. She is not concerned with his rumored past, but she is saddened by his lack of faith. Filled with romance, hardship, and adventure, this sequel to Lighthouse vividly portrays the antebellum South while revealing an independent man's search for happiness.

St. Simons Memoir

St. Simons Memoir
Author: Eugenia Price
Publisher: Turner
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9781684427123

After only a few golden hours on Georgia's St. Simons Island, Eugenia Price longed to make it her home. Even though she loved her old town house in Chicago, and her busy writing and lecturing schedule, the shadow-streaked, light-filled place had cast its spell and would not let her go. The reader, too, will feel the Island's magic as Genie describes her odyssey with her friend Joyce Blackburn from the urban North to Southern small-town community life and peace. With deep affection and humor she shares her many friendships--with "the first six," the elderly folk who gave her their love, their stories, and their memories so that she could write her novels of St. Simons; with her beloved editor, Tay Hohoff, who encouraged and goaded her; and with all the other people who helped with her writing and with the building of her Island home in the midst of the "dear dark woods." Although she had been uncertain at first of her welcome to St. Simons, she later experienced the rare privilege of having the Island name a day in her honor. These intimate pages are also filled with Genie's quiet faith in God and her eternal gratitude for His grace in sending her to St. Simons. She calls her book a memoir, but it is more than that. It is a thanksgiving celebration of life and of its surprising goodness even in the midst of sorrow and loss. So that she can exclaim to Joyce, "How could life be better than it is right now?"

Island Passages

Island Passages
Author: Jingle Davis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820348698

"Written in a lively, accessible style by Jingle Davis and lavishly illustrated with photographs by Benjamin Galland, Island Passages is a solid work of public history that presents a carefully researched document of Jekyll Island, Georgia, from its geologic beginning as a shifting sand spit to its present-day ownership by the state of Georgia. While many books have been published about Jekyll, most focus on specific eras or episodes of island history. Davis and Galland's book makes an important contribution to the island's literature because it synthesizes all these aspects into a comprehensive and beautifully executed history"--Provided by publisher.

Jekyll Island

Jekyll Island
Author: Tyler Bagwell
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780738505725

Since the 1940s, Jekyll Island has gone through a transformation from an exclusive private club where America's wealthiest families vacationed to a state-owned resort enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year. The changes that came to Jekyll brought both disappointments and triumphs, and involved people from all walks of life--the former employees of the Jekyll Island Club who remained after its closing in 1942, the military servicemen who were stationed on the island in the early 1940s, the legislators divided over the State of Georgia's purchase of the island in 1947, and the tourists who continue to enjoy this coastal community into the twenty-first century. Within these pages, the story of Jekyll's transformation unfolds. Historic photographs of the island, its early residents, and devoted beachcombers recall the early days when the island was accessed only by ferry and when the elite club reopened as a hotel. Included are images of the island's continued development, prompted by the 1950 formation of the Jekyll Island Authority, which remains today as the island's governing entity. Hotels, parks, restaurants, golf courses, and a host of other attractions are featured in this unique retrospective.

Sea Change

Sea Change
Author: Karen White
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2012-06-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0451236769

When newlywed Ava Whalen follows her husband to his family home on St. Simons Island, she discovers a tangled web of dangerous secrets in this enthralling story from the New York Times bestselling author of the Tradd Street novels. For as long as she can remember, Ava Whalen has struggled with a sense of not belonging, and now, at thirty-four, she still feels stymied by her family. Then she meets child psychologist Matthew Frazier, and thinks her days of loneliness are behind her. After a whirlwind romance, they impulsively elope, and Ava moves to Matthew’s ancestral home on St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia. But after the initial excitement, Ava is surprised to discover that true happiness continues to elude her. There is much she doesn’t know about Matthew, including the mysterious circumstances surrounding his first wife’s death. And her new home seems to hold as many mysteries and secrets as her new husband. Feeling adrift, Ava throws herself into uncovering Matthew’s family history and that of the island, not realizing that she has a connection of her own to this place—or that her obsession with the past could very well destroy her future.

As the Tide Comes In

As the Tide Comes In
Author: Cindy Woodsmall
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0735291012

A New York Times best-selling author releases her first southern novel, a Steel Magnolias-meets-Sweet Home Alabama story set on St. Simons Island. When an unthinkable loss sends Tara Abbott's life spiraling out of control, she journeys from North Carolina to Georgia's St. Simons Island. Although confused and scared, she hopes to find answers about her past - her life before the years of foster care and raising her two half-brothers as a young adult. Will she find steady ground on the island, surrounded by an eccentric-but-kindhearted group of older women called The Glynn Girls and a determined firefighter? Or will the truth splinter what's left of her identity into pieces?

At Home on St. Simons

At Home on St. Simons
Author: Eugenia Price
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 81
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684427444

Here, for the first time outside the pages of a small Island newspaper called Georgia’s Coastal Illustrated, Eugenia shares with her worldwide reading public, some of what life was like during the first years in which she and her best friend and fellow writer, Joyce Blackburn, were becoming Islanders. “These short pieces,” Genie says, “include my observations day by day of what it was like, at last, to be at home on St. Simons. We were learning how to be neighbors, after so many years of complex life in the huge northern city of Chicago; learning how to care deeply for people with whom, at first glance, we had little in common. We were understanding what it really meant to have come home.” Eugenia Price, called by many St. Simons’ own “beloved invader,” tells you here about those early years as they were being lived. Her St. Simons Memoir, cherished by thousands, was written from memory and notes in old desk calendars, but At Home on St. Simons illuminates some of the experiences which most changed her—as they occurred. More than fourteen million people have read Eugenia Price’s books which have been translated into fifteen languages. Much of the magic these millions remember so vividly years after the reading, began in the simple, sad, joyous, and absorbing events related to this singular volume. Never before published is a brand new opening chapter, in which Ms. Price attempts to explain—almost as to herself—why, in the face of such drastic change on the once provincial little coastal island, she is still at home on St. Simons. Her readers do not have to see the Island firsthand, to recognize their own response to her sense of place.

Explorer's Guide Georgia (Second Edition)

Explorer's Guide Georgia (Second Edition)
Author: Carol Thalimer
Publisher: The Countryman Press
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2012-12-03
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1581577745

Georgia is one of the top domestic travel destinations in the U.S. From ancient mountains and winding rivers to charming towns, plush coastal island communities, and the lively metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia: An Explorer's Guide offers a vast variety of opportunities for travelers of many interests. In this all-new guide, veteran travel writers Carol and Dan Thalimer lead you on the ultimate exploration of the Peach Tree State, showing you where to find the best barbeque, white-water rafting, historic battlefields, cultural opportunities, and much more. This revised edition includes hundreds of dining recommendations, from roadside eateries to fine cuisine. Opinionated listings of inns, B&Bs, hotels, vacation cabins, and campgrounds are also featured. Other features include: 15 up-to-date regional and city maps; an alphabetical “What's Where” guide for trip planning; handy icons that point out best values, wheelchair access, family- and pet-friendly activities and establishments.