A Long-Distance Call for the Ages

How Jekyll Island made telephone history

BY SCOTT FREEMAN

It took 1,100 miles of copper cable strung up specifically for the occasion, but AT&T president Theodore Vail was determined to be part of the first coast-tocoast telephone call in U.S. history. Considered the father of the telephone business, Vail dreamed of establishing a transcontinental phone service and, at the dawn of 1915, oversaw completion of a line that stretched from New York City to San Francisco.

Vail planned to partake in the inaugural call from his office in New York City. But a leg injury forced him to remain on Jekyll, where he was wintering, so he ordered a special extension of the line to the island. On January 25, 1915, inside the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, joined by J.P. Morgan Jr. and William Rockefeller, Vail participated in the first coast-to-coast conference call.

The call included President Woodrow Wilson, who phoned in from the White House, and dignitaries from

New York City, Boston, and San Francisco. It opened with two familiar voices reenacting a famed conversation: Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, speaking from New York City, told Thomas Watson, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” The first time he had uttered those words was in 1876, on the very first telephone call; Watson had rushed in from an adjacent room. This time Watson was in San Francisco, and he quipped, “It would take me a week to get to you.”

Later in the call, Vail conversed with Watson, pointing out that their exchange set a mark for the longest long-distance call in U.S. history; the line from Jekyll to San Francisco by way of Boston spanned 4,750 miles. Before the call ended, someone proposed three cheers to Vail. “And all the way across the continent, the cheers were given,” wrote one observer. “And Theodore Vail at Jekyl (sic) Island plainly heard them.”

Ed Crowell, Steve Nedvidek and Jack Lowe have been friends for two decades, during which time the three Georgians have spent their days raising families and climbing career ladders. Crowell is CEO of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association, while Nedvidek and Lowe both work in corporate roles at Chick-fil-A. But in 2012, at a Christmas party, they decided to pursue an unusual ambition: creating a graphic novel. The idea, as Nedvidek first explained it to Crowell, was an early superhero story. “What would superheroes be like right after the first world war,” he mused, “in that machine age? What would it be like if injured, wartime heroes were rebuilt to fight anarchists trying to control the world?” The resulting “diesel-punk, sci-fi fantasy” called the Jekyll Island Chronicles was born.

“When Steve talked about the time frame and how wealthy people could play some of the good-guy roles, my reaction was, ‘We’ve got to talk about Jekyll Island,’ ” says Crowell. “I knew about the financiers and industrialists who made it their club for a while in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a perfect fit.”

They all write, but each focuses on different things. “Ed is a history lover,” Lowe says, “and brings a wealth of knowledge and desire to research. I like writing action sequences and kind of lean toward some of the details around the mechanical and architectural things.” Nedvidek specializes in character development and handles storyboarding. The result goes to Atlanta illustrator Moses Nester, then to Las Vegas colorist S.J. Miller; both were discovered at SCAD.

“One of the things we loved about creating this alternate history was that a lot of it still exists,” Nedvidek says. “There’s the massive tower at the Jekyll Island Club hotel that my wife and I actually spent a few nights in to take pictures: of a special room, spindles of the staircase, the wall sconces, the lights, the chapel. The fireplace with the boar’s head over it. We also look at old pictures when we can and see how well much of the site is preserved. It’s exciting to think that a lot of people in Georgia have no idea of the history right under their noses.”

After a brief stint working out of Nedvidek’s daughter’s dance room, the trio now uses a converted storeroom in his basement. The space is littered with superhero memorabilia. An old kitchen table became a writer’s table covered with Marvel clippings. The first novel in the series earned an award—one of 2017’s “Top 10 Books Every Young Georgian Should Read”—from the Georgia Center for the Book. The authors have posted free educational resources on their website to help teachers utilize the book in their classrooms. For everyone else, the books are available on Amazon.com and in Barnes & Noble bookstores. The team hopes to publish five more installments in the next decade, including book two in July ahead of San Diego’s Comic-Con. While Hollywood film adaptations would be nice, they don’t expect to quit their day jobs. Impressing their neighbors is enough. “It’s a little bit of homestate pride to have it set here,” Crowell says. “We get a kick out of having folks here make the connection that the world we’ve created isn’t really that far away.”

912-319-2174 ★ 1 Harbor Rd, Jekyll Island, GA 31527

“There’s not a bad place to run on the island. We run on the coast, on the bike path. . . . The oak trees are enormous, and with the Spanish moss, you feel like you’re running through a jungle. We like to run on the beach at low tide. . . . Tony proposed to me on Driftwood Beach when we had the supermoon, and we got married there. You feel like you’re away from everything because it’s so calm and beautiful.” —lisa hammett

As told to JENNIFER SENATOR • Photograph by GABRIEL HANWAY lisa and tony hammett reside in woodstock, georgia, and own peak racing events. the accomplished runners frequently log miles on jekyll, which hosts several competitive races each year, including the annual turtle crawl triathlons and the jekyll island marathon and 10k.

Wildlife experts on Jekyll want to share the underappreciated awesomeness of eastern diamondback rattlers. But first they have to find them.

By JUSTIN HECKERT