PLACE TIME &

The reimagined Museum of Jekyll Island offers a mosaic of artifacts across human and natural history

BY JOSH GREEN / PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN AUSTIN LEE

one breezy december afternoon at the eastern edge of Jekyll Island’s historic district, an unassuming white building that could pass for a country barn was abuzz with hammer pings and the shouts of construction crews. The workers had gutted the surprisingly airy, 9,000-square-foot interior to its inimitable bones. And if the wooden walls, towering fireplaces, and original double-hung windows could talk, they might recall: being built as the Jekyll Island Club Stables in 1897 for workhorses (and later automobiles) belonging to the likes of Joseph Pulitzer and the Rockefellers; serving as an inglorious storage facility for maintenance equipment and then a hardware store; and finally becoming a museum without air-conditioning or heat in the 1980s. That last incarnation had a paddock

(with pervasive equine odors) and a boxy theater in the middle that obliterated the space’s charms. Thanks to a $3.1 million renovation, the future of Mosaic, the Jekyll Island Museum, looks decidedly brighter. The goal of the project was to modernize the museum in function and flow while highlighting its architectural character, luring everyone from tykes to older history buffs and providing interactive, educational experiences that cover Jekyll’s history. Up to 50,000 annual visitors are expected to use the museum as a gateway to the historic district—and to a greater understanding of Jekyll’s distinctiveness. “It really is an excellent example of the kind of revitalization that’s been taking place on Jekyll for about ten years,” said Bruce Piatek, the Jekyll Island

Authority’s director of historical resources. “It’s the last piece, the last major redo in the historic district.”

Fundraising efforts for the public-private partnership, driven by the Jekyll Island Foundation, began in 2014. Joining more than 260 corporate, foundation, and individual donors, the Jekyll Island Authority contributed 1.1 million, while the Atlantabased Robert W. Woodruff Foundation donated another $750,000. The design will reflect what the name Mosaic signifies: various facets of Jekyll’s story—nature, history, ecology—compiled as a single narrative under one roof. Climate control means hundreds of artifacts can now be displayed at once.

STATE ERA Refurbished Studebaker

Among the first treasures to greet Mosaic guests will be a restored four-door 1947 Studebaker—the type of car a family might have used to cruise the new causeway into Jekyll in the 1950s. Accompanied by a vintage Jekyll postcard expanded into a mural, the vehicle will serve as an interactive photo op; guests can sit inside and enjoy period music and a couple of old radio ads, including one celebrating the causeway’s grand opening.

“We’re trying to put you in that setting,” said Piatek. “Initially, we were going to cut the poor [car] in half, but it was so pretty, we couldn’t.”

Inside, an array of sculpted migratory birds will dangle overhead as visitors work back through Jekyll history, beginning with Native American habitation. A circular playscape for kids will expand into the lobby and offer an oversized eagle’s nest and crawl-through marsh exhibit. Other pieces will include a Red Bug beach cruiser (see page 12), a 1740s reproduction sailboat, a dugout Native American canoe made of Jekyll pine, and a replica hull of the Wanderer one of America’s last documented slave ships, which landed on the island—that allows visitors to crawl inside and experience the inhumane conditions. The museum isn’t meant to stand in for real experiences—such as spotting actual bald eagles— but rather serve as a starter kit for exploring the island’s rich history and natural beauty.

CLUB ERA Louis Vuitton luggage

Harking back to a time when one-sixth of the world’s wealth was represented on Jekyll each winter, this collection of leatherwrapped Louis Vuitton luggage (two trunks and a smaller valise) was as fashionable in name in the early 1900s as today. The pieces belonged to a Club family, the Jenningses of Standard Oil prosperity. Keep an eye peeled for old shipping labels still stuck to the sides.

Plantation Era

DuBignon signet ring

This heirloom signet ring from the DuBignon family—French émigrés who owned Jekyll Island for about a century until the 1890s—was handed down through generations and donated to the museum. Made of flecked stone and gold, the ring depicts the couronnes des comtes crown, wheat, and laurel leaves representing victory, triumph, success, fame, prosperity, and peace. “We have very few artifacts from that time period, and it’s directly connected to the family,” said museum curator Andrea Marroquin. “It’s a neat piece.”

COLONIAL/ EUROPEAN ERA

Major Horton’s uniform

Authentic in colors and wool material, which was believed to whisk away sweat in sultry climates, this replica uniform mirrors what would have been worn by Major William Horton, Jekyll’s first English resident, at the oldest Colonial-era structure on the island, the 1743 Horton House. Horton rose from civilian ranks to second-in-command behind General James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony, and the mock regalia reflects that status.

Native American Era

“Hidden in the Midden”

Anchoring the exhibit farthest from the entrance are re-creations of a Native American midden (refuse pile composed largely of oyster shells) and a thatched-roof cottage with mud and clay walls. Showing deposits by Archaic people from 4,500 years ago as well as ancestors of modern-day Creek tribes and other Native Americans, the three-dimensional midden provides an archaeologist’s perspective of deep sand, armadillo tunnels, even litter. A key message will be sustainability and stewardship, which the Rockefellers didn’t know to practice when they removed part of a shell midden in the 1910s to improve the marsh views at Indian Mound Cottage. Combined with a variety of artifacts, the installations will relay the story of bygone Jekyll residents who left no written record.

BY TONY REHAGEN

Jekyll Island has long been a vacation destination. Wealthy snowbirds flocked to its natural grandeur at the turn of the twentieth century. When the state took over the island in 1947, the goal was to lure the masses. It didn’t take long to realize this would take more than just sand, surf, and sunshine. On its way to becoming the serene refuge for families and sea turtles it is today, Jekyll saw several parks and amusement rides come and go. And while these attractions ultimately were razed, replaced, and largely forgotten, longtime island guests still have fond and funny memories—fading echoes of a time when Jekyll was still searching for its modern identity.

an amusement park . . . for turtles

In April 1956, Georgia businessman Harvey Smith built Peppermint Land, Jekyll’s first amusement park. Located on the ocean side of the island, just south of where Tortuga Jack’s currently stands, the red-andwhite-striped theme park featured a small Ferris wheel, a low-riding roller coaster, a miniature train, and go-karts. That last element was a big draw for local boys like Skip Adamson, who first moved to Jekyll in 1963, at age twelve. “At that age, being able to drive something with an engine was fun,” says Adamson. “They went pretty fast.”

The oval track of asphalt was lined with wooden rails to keep wayward speed demons on course. Each run of several laps cost 10 cents. “My dad owned the laundromat and he always collected the coins,” says Adamson. “One time I ‘borrowed’ a whole roll of dimes. I got in trouble. I’ve regretted it ever since.” The object of Adamson’s shame was shuttered and torn down in 1965, when Smith failed to secure a favorable lease with the state.

According to Adamson and other residents at the time, few people lamented the closing of the park, which had fallen into disrepair. But one surprising group of visitors surely missed it. In 1962, the park had to shut down several rides when a bale of baby loggerhead turtles squatted on the train tracks. It was August, hatching season, and the hatchlings were drawn to the park’s bright lights.

The Ride That Went Downhill Fast

Not long after Peppermint Land closed, the same beach-view area just across the road from the miniature golf course was host to a thrill ride that was way too swift for turtles—and many humans.

In the 1960s and 1970s, gunny-sack slides were all the rage. Riders would climb to the top of a steep, multilane slide, slip into or onto a burlap bag, and send themselves screaming straight down. Jekyll’s Super Slide was several stories tall and made of metal. “It was silver and blue—an ugly thing,” says Lloyd Douglas, who moved to Jekyll in the mid-1950s and worked for the Jekyll Island Authority for forty years.

Adding to the eyesore were giant overhead lights that allowed sliders to embrace gravity late into the summer nights. “The lights were so huge,” says John Neidhardt, who has lived on the island since 1970, “you could probably see them from space.”

However, the Super Slide’s ultimate demise was left: due less to being hard on the eyes than being hard on the body. The salt spray from the ocean made the thing even more slippery, and the dividers between the eight lanes were short and less than effective. Sliders rocketing some fifty feet downward side by side would almost always bump into one another before the first hump, which often slammed their backs and heads into the unforgiving surface. It was quite a cost for a joy ride that lasted just a second or two. “Several people got hurt,” says Adamson. “I think they closed it down pretty soon after that. It was crazy even for back then. It was dangerous—but it was fun.”

The Only Indoor Pool Around

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, many people on Jekyll believed a convention center would help bring in visitors. But the state legislature, thinking the island wasn’t quite ready for that, wouldn’t appropriate the funds. The government did, however, relinquish the money for a recreation center.

In 1961, construction of the Aquarama was completed on the southeastern side of the island, not far from where the current convention center now stands. The period Art Deco exterior, punctuated by its iconic triangular glass entry, covered what was billed as an Olympic-sized swimming pool—although locals knew that the dimensions came up a foot or two shy of the required fifty feet due to a shortfall in funding. Nevertheless, the pool was the first heated indoor pool in the region, and it attracted swimmers from all around the state. There were one-meter and three-meter diving boards at one end for the more adventurous, along with a kiddie pool for little waders. At the time, more families lived on the island, with enough kids to form a local swim team—which at one time included Neidhardt.

“Having been in such a big room with that triangular roof, I can still smell the chlorine,” says Neidhardt. “It was heated so you could swim yearround. There was always a loud echo of people talking loudly bouncing off the concrete beams.”

The din of splashing and shouting wasn’t the only thing that grew beneath the steamy Aquarama ceiling. “With it being closed in, the place didn’t get a lot of sun,” says Douglas. “Algae grew pretty fast on the concrete. You’d have to scrub it with [cleaner]. The Aquarama was quite a chore to maintain.”

In the end, perhaps cleaning and heating and maintaining the huge facility became too much of a chore. Summer Waves opened in 1987, providing an alternative water-play destination for locals and tourists. In 1992, after three decades of service, the Aquarama was closed. It was torn down three years later.

what the heck is ski rixen?

Any beach town worth its weight in sand is going to offer water sports. Jekyll’s unspoiled beaches have always hosted swimmers, boaters, boogie-boarders, and the occasional surfer. But the ocean tends to be a bit choppy for water-skiing.

In the early 1980s, the solution was Ski Rixen, a European system of electrically powered metal cables that pull skiers. A twenty-three-acre pond was dug on the southwestern side of island, right behind where the 4-H Tidelands Nature Center now sits, adjacent to Summer Waves. Cables ran in a rectangle across the pond, about thirty feet above the water. Every few feet a skier, perched atop two skis or a wakeboard, would be thrown a rope that was hooked to a carrier and pulled one way or the other across the pond at speeds upward of sixteen miles per hour. “It was a lot harder to do than most people thought,” says Adamson. “It was slinging people off all the time. A few people I knew got pretty accomplished at it, but not many. I never tried it myself. I knew I’d break something.”

“It was very difficult,” says Neidhardt. “But once you learned it, it was fun. The cable was always moving; it never stopped. The key was to learn how to hold on without flying through the air.”

Of course, any Jekyll resident will warn that where there is a relatively calm body of water, there are uninvited guests. “Occasionally you’d hear about an alligator in the lake,” says Neidhardt. “But they never had an incident. I’d never seen one—until one was there.”

The attraction closed due to gator safety concerns after only a few years. Today there aren’t any skiers or cables on the pond, but it’s a popular fishing spot.

In the 1960s, the Jekyll Island Clubhouse signage had a distinctly retro look. After sitting out of commission for many years, the sign— including its original bulbs—shines on in Mosaic, the Jekyll Island Museum.