The barrier islands of the south Atlantic coastline have for years held a deep attraction for all who have come into contact with them. Few, however, can compare with the mystique of Sapelo Island, Georgia. This unique semitropical paradise evokes a time long forgotten, when antebellum cotton plantations dominated her landscape, all worked by hundreds of black slaves, the descendants of whom have lived in quiet solitude on the island for generations. For more than 50 years of the twentieth century, two millionaires held sway on Sapelo, and it is their story, interwoven with that of the...

When automotive pioneer Henry Ford burst upon the scene in 1925, Ways Station was hardly more than an assemblage of modest residences, a store or two, and a post office. Spurred by the energies and vision of Ford, an army of agricultural, industrial, medical, and educational experts from Dearborn, Michigan, transformed the area into one of the most productive, vibrant communities on the southern tidewater. Ford employed hundreds of area residents to farm 85,000 acres along the Ogeechee River. He also established sawmills, lumberyards, and agricultural experiment stations. He provided the...

From 1870 to 1920, McIntosh County, Georgia, was one of the most energetic communities on the southern coast. Its county seat, Darien, never had a population of more than 2,000 residents; yet, little Darien was, for a considerable time, the leading exporter of yellow pitch pine timber on the
Atlantic Coast. Burned to ashes during the Civil War, Darien
rose up and, with its timber booms and sawmills, took its place among the leading towns of the "New South" of the late nineteenth century. In this unique photographic retrospective of Darien and McIntosh County, over 200 images evoke...