Lots of History here on St Simon's Island. in regards to WWII. Aerial training, early Radar…read moreSchool, 85 Liberty ships build here

I recall the first time that went here was in 2019. My first visit was awesome and interesting…read more There's plenty of parking here and this museum is close to a beach as well. This museum is full of WWII history and items as well. Another awesome thing about this facility is that is in front of a lighthouse, and I do believe that there are a total of 130 steps to get to the top. If you love learning about military history like I do, then I highly recommend this place. Also, if you have the strength and stamina to climb those lighthouse stairs, then I highly recommend taking a tour of the lighthouse as well. I plan on visiting again sometime this year.

This was a fun way to spend a hour or so and get a lot of history of the island. They actually let…read moreyou go up the lighthouse steps (129 stairs) so you can experience the life of keeper. It's a spiraling staircase that has some landings along the way so you can rest or stretch. But it's the coming down that is a little harder. The spiraling stairs are more disorienting coming down, so take your time. After that there are a few rooms of pertinent information and then they have four rooms upstairs that show what life was life back then. Each room was recreated with artifacts of the time period...and there was a little interactive tablets that explain the different items in the room. A definite stop if you're visiting the island.

A fun stop with beautiful views and a rich history! Very photogenic area as well! The stairs going…read moreup are tight and a bit steep so passing people going down can be tough but worth the effort for the view at the top! The museum is a wonderful trip through history and they even offered coloring sheets for the kids to take home with information about lighthouses on the back that was their level! Great spot to visit, and right next door is a wonderful park to let kids go wild in after :)

I never knew any of the history that we stumbled upon here!…read more First of all, the building is nicely done with great museum like displays and a cute gift shop. There was also an extremely knowledgeable person inside who gave us a ton of info about the history and the fort. We then ventured outside (bug spray may be a good idea here!) and looked at the various spots with info and the history of the butcher, baker, candlestick maker as well as the other jobs around the fort. The actual building ruins are interesting and picturesque by the water. You could easily spend a while here meandering and learning. 100% worth a visit if you are nearby!

This afternoon, my mom and I went to go tour the Fort Federica national Monument on Saint Simons…read moreIsland. It is a free fort so you don't pay a parking fee or an entrance fee. They have a museum inside along with a small gift shop as well as the fort grounds that you can walk around and read the Historical information. To get on Saint Simons Island you don't have to pay an island fee. The lady at the desk, her name is Barbara. She was very nice and assisted me with purchasing my passport guide. A passport to the national parks has little areas where you can take the stamps from the different national parks and stamp in your booklet. The passport books includes national parks all over the country. In the gift shop, they have a regular passport, an expert passport and a junior guide for a junior Rangers. 10/10

The setting is beautiful- near the beach The volunteer in the house was a wealth of knowledge. So…read moreinteresting how close the USCG center used to be to the inlet but with time, it is so much farther away. The info about the liberty ships, the blimps, and the amount of soldiers lost on Coastal Georgia was amazing. The information regarding the Black Outs was new to me and learning loose lips may sink ships came from this WW2 movement in coastal Georgia was interesting. The community spirit was alive and reading the room and doing the interactive games for identifying planes and navigating the blimp put us right there. We enjoyed the boathouse and the center visit. It was informative and the volunteers who are there are a wealth of knowledge and they make it even better.

This is an incredibly important part of World War II that many people aren't aware of. The Germans…read moreruthlessly attacked merchant ships along the East Coast of the US and even came onto our shores. They turned the old Coast Guard Station into a museum. Definitely worth the stop!

Wonderful historic site that was a former rice plantation. The same family lived in the home for…read moremultiple generations and the last heir left the estate to the state of Georgia. Beautiful antiques, cool grounds, and amazing landscape. All left in It's original state. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and shared many interesting facts. Definitely worth visiting!

The history of this region is worth thinking about, but tough to see. Most of these sorts of…read moreplantations are long abandoned; the story of how this one fell into the hands of the state government is told, along with other context, on a half-hour tour of their small mansion. The tour starts on the hour, and having arrived shortly in advance, they told me to drive down a service road that said not to drive down on it so I could park at the house and make it on time. The tour content focuses on the family line that owned the house; there is some discussion of the people they owned early in its history, but a more detailed take on the forced labor system involved in rice farming is given in the museum back where one starts. It is a distinctive and difficult topic, but the films they play offer a relatively level-headed take. The area is very swampy now; I got outside of the house and thought to wander around and take pictures, but was immediately beset by flies. Fortunately, I had the luxury of my car. Seeing these places in person makes one wonder how anyone ever lived and labored here without modern conveniences. There's plenty of food for thought.

Our church had our women's retreat here a few weeks ago. What a perfect place to meet with other…read morewomen and with God. It is so serene and calming. The grounds are gorgeous and everything was well cleaned. The rooms in Turner Lodge were a little outdated but the beds were super comfortable! 1000% would come here again. Truly loved it and how calm we were feeling all weekend long!!

The positive : The view of the river is beautiful…read more Negative. Room smelled musty even with the air purifier. Room was dated. Bed was hard and pillows on a king bed were standard cheap quality. The TV was small for the size and price of the room. Won't stay again quality vs $200plus price was too much.

What a hidden gem! Perfect for kids and adults. The bouncy houses were great for our 3yo. The…read morepinballs are so much fun and the other games like TMNT, air hockey and basketball were a hit too

Great selection of games, more than any I've seen in one location if I wasn't at a gaming…read moreconvention. Most are well maintained. Be sure to check the back room (you have to go out the back, across a fenced in paved yard, and into the next building). It has a lot of the older pinball machines.

Walking or biking around the historic district is just perfection, no other way to describe it…read more While it's a good distance to walk, it's manageable. I'd suggest buying a ticket to the Mosaic Museum and trolley tour (buy the trolley ticket and you get in the museum and chapel free) and tour the district first. After the tour you can stroll at your leisure along the homes and decide which ones you want to visit with some knowledge in your pocket. The trolley tour also gains admission into the Rockefeller home, Indian Mound that is just amazing.

Jekyll Island has been many things to many people, throughout history. It was a seasonal place to…read morelive for indigenous tribes (the Guale & the Mocama), just as it was for America's most elite of the Gilded Age. It was first explored by the Spanish in 1510, & called Isla De Ballenas. In 1562, it was claimed by France, & called Ille de la Somme. It was later colonized by the Spanish, then in 1733, colonized by the English. While Jekyll was also once a plantation site, & landing for one slave ship, The Wanderer, (all of which is pretty serious history), there are few physical remnants of that time, & the prevalent stuff the island is known for are the flashy late-19thC / early-20thC "Club Era" manses in the Historic District, surrounding the Jekyll Island Club Resort, which is the most iconic historic building on the island. In its heyday, the JI Club, & stately abodes that make up the Historic District, comprised "the richest, most inaccessible club in the world." BFDs like J.P. Morgan, William K. Vanderbilt, Joseph Pulitzer, Marshall Field, Frank Henry Goodyear, etc. made JI their winter playground. Henri Charles DuBignon set out to create a winter retreat for the wealthy in 1886, & he was successful in this endeavor, until 1942, when the island was evacuated during WWII. At the end of the war, the state of GA bought the entire island. Today, the Historic District is 33 buildings on 240 acres on the western intercoastal "river" side of the island. The HD has a few access roads in it, but it is mostly a network of sidewalks, with benches throughout, & some picnic tables. All of the remaining structures are either fully renovated & in use, or are in some stage of restoration. The architecture is artful & romantic; no two buildings are alike. The showpieces are closer toward the water. These are the individual vacation homes of the prominent club members. Their mansions are called "cottages" in the ironic humor that only the most vile over-privileged people think is cute. I appreciate the work of the architects, & understand funding had to come from someone, but when I read the few didactics available at these sites, I wasn't really gripped by any of the stories. Not sure if it was simply the author's choice to highlight the showy-ness of how fancy, coveted, & expensive things were, or if that home's family really had nothing more noteworthy, humanitarian, or virtuous in their legacy to talk about, but I found the didactics, & even the plaque about J.P. Morgan's yacht, to be utterly grotesque. Yet, after the Trump Era, I guess I should've known better when walking around a former Mar-a-Lago. Maybe this is the socialist in me, but psychologically speaking, one must be a sociopath to reach a certain level of wealth. That said, regardless of these people's moral health, they created a beautiful spot, & no one thinks too hard while on island vacation in the sun, & the Historic District is exactly what tourists want to look at while sipping mochas or eating ice cream. The Jekyll Island Club is a large hotel building. Through JIC, you may also rent a room at the Sans Souci building (some of the first condos in the US), or one of the "cottages." The Crane & Cherokee cottages are popular for weddings. Other cottages are undergoing restoration, or are used for other purposes (offices, small local art gallery, etc.). The Gilded Age folk did create the Federal Reserve System at the JI Club in 1910, & made the first transatlantic phone call from the island in 1927, so some industry was accomplished. The former functional clapboard buildings (farrier, general store, etc.) mostly line Pier Rd, & are now all touristy gift shops. They are painted a uniform mustard yellow color, with brown trim. While quaint, they'd be much cuter in varying colors, to make each one stand out, w/ didactics in front of each to explain its former use. The Jekyll Mosaic Museum is the history museum adjacent to the HD, & they offer tours to explain all of the district's buildings, but still, didactics would be a much more enriching experience, to help that area come alive, IMO. Last, is this place haunted? Google ghosts on JI, for more, but the HD is known for ghost sightings. I encountered some heebie-jeebies at certain parts of the island: the path between Clam Creek & Driftwood Beach, near my rental house, the wooded area of the HD near the Sea Turtle Museum, and the JI Amphitheater ruins. But one night, smack in the middle of the lawn beside the HD's JI Club, I was walking around at sunset with a cocktail taking pictures, texting to a friend. My friend told me to zoom in on one shot; when I did, there were two ghoulish figures sitting on a bench--but there was NO ONE THERE in plain sight. What's more scary? My toddler woke up from his nap in the stroller & started saying "spooky ghost" out of the blue! I was so freaked out! See my posted photos to judge for yourself! Enjoy, but after sunset, get ready for some goosebumps!

This place was excellent and very good interactive exhibits that talked about the beginnings of…read moreJekyll Island

This was a very good and educational museum. They have a lot of information about the island --…read morefrom before the Europeans descended until almost the present day. Included are the slave history and the creation of the Jekyll Island Club and its influence. Some of the nicer aspects are the touch and feel exhibits. And the interactive photo op where you can take pictures of yourself in various old time outfits. You will definitely learn something about the area and the island by coming here. The exhibits are done in chronological order. And they highlight the history and unique happenings on the island. It's a good starting point for those new to visiting Jekyll Island. Plus it is the location for the start of the trolley tour. You can purchase a ticket for just the museum or in combination with the trolley tour. We purchased our tickets on line which added a small service fee, but we figured this was safer as the island hosts many large conventions and sometimes the tours and the museum are quite busy. You can browse the museum before or after the trolley tour, if you take it. The day we came it had been pouring rain, so we were unable to take the trolley tour at our originally scheduled time. So we spent the first hour (waiting for the rain to end) leisurely viewing all the exhibits. In addition, there is a very nice gift shop attached to the museum. And it's worth a visit in itself.