The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus, is an endangered species and is no longer found in Georgia. Beetles, order Coleoptera, are the largest group of insects, and thousands of species can be found in Georgia.
Photograph by the Frost Museum
European honeybees are not native to Georgia, but records show they arrived in the state by 1743. They were named the state insect in 1975. In addition to creating honey, honeybees pollinate several crops, including blueberries, apples, melons, and gourds.
Photograph by Waugsberg
An adult silkmoth, Bombyx mori. This species's caterpillar, the mulberry silkworm, has produced silk textiles for millennia. Eighteenth-century Georgia colonists tried and failed to establish a silk industry in Savannah.
Photograph by Nikita
Solenopsis invicta are an invasive ant species from South America. The species has interbred with native ants to create hybrid ant species that threaten soybean production. All ants are eusocial, which means they live in strict social hiearchies.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Researchers have attributed recent declines in apiary honeybee populations to parasitic varroa mites, pictured between the bee's wings above. Varroa mites suck drone and developing brood blood, weakening individuals. An untreated varroa infestation may kill colonies.
Photograph by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
The golden garden spider, Argiope aurantia, is a member of the orb-web family. Here, an individual uses its spinnerets, located on its abdomen, to trap prey. Spiders are exclusively carnivorous, though the golden garden spider is no danger to humans.
Photograph by Tom McC
Widow spiders produce cobwebs and seclude themselves in dark, isolated areas. They have a painful bite, which requires medical attention, but they are rarely fatal.
Photograph by Charaj
The eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilo glaucus, is the state butterfly of Georgia. It's common across the eastern United States.
Courtesy of Loy Xingwen
Jane Hurt Yarn, an influential advocate for environmental conservation in Georgia, is pictured in Atlanta, circa 1995. She served on U.S. president Jimmy Carter's Council on Environmental Quality and was instrumental in the creation of Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, located off the coast of Jekyll Island.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Conservationist Jim Fowler, a Georgia native, holds a peregrine falcon at the National Bison Range near Missoula, Montana, in 1998. Fowler cohosted the television series Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom for more than twenty years and made frequent appearances on the Today show and on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Jim Fowler (center), a conservationist and environmental educator, shows a student in Rockdale County how to feed a baby black-spotted leopard in 2003. A native of Dougherty County, Fowler was the longtime cohost of the television series Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Visitors feed a rhino in the Parks at Chehaw in Albany. The zoo was designed by Dougherty County native Jim Fowler, the longtime cohost of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. The Chehaw zoo and Zoo Atlanta are the only two accredited zoos in the state.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
Proper procedures for handling hazardous waste include labeling and maintaining inventories of dangerous substances, as well as creating emergency-response plans in case of accidental releases.
Photograph by Jeremy Brooks
Household garbage is compacted at the Seminole Road Landfill in DeKalb County, pictured in 2005. Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulates the proper management of landfills in order to protect the surrounding environment and communities.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Photograph by Rich Addicks..
Christmas trees in Bainbridge are chipped into mulch in January 2009 as part of the statewide "Bring One for the Chipper" tree recycling program. The chipping was a joint effort by the City of Bainbridge and Keep Decatur County Beautiful.
Courtesy of Bainbridgega.com
Hazardous solid waste consists of material that has been discarded and poses a threat to human health or the environment. Disposal of hazardous wastes, much of which are produced as by-products of industrial processes, is regulated by Subtitle C of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey. Photograph by S. C. Delaney
An employee at the Seminole Road Landfill in DeKalb County separates old car tires from rims in preparation for recycling. The management of solid and hazardous waste is covered by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, which was passed to help protect human and environmental health and to reduce waste.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Photograph by Rich Addicks..
Recycle 4 Georgia is a program administered by the Office of Environmental Management of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. The program encourages local governments to manage waste through recycling by providing recycling trailers for special events.
Courtesy of Recycle 4 Georgia
Major sources of industrial toxins in Georgia include agriculture, manufacturing, and coal-fired electrical power generation. Georgia Power Company's Bowen plant, a coal-fired power plant in Bartow County, is the nation's top producer of sulfur dioxide, a toxic substance.Photograph by Joe McTyre.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Gilman Paper Company, pictured in 1952, was located in Camden County. Like other paper mills, the Gilman Paper Company released a variety of toxins into the surrounding environment during its years of operation. The site of the plant was later cleaned under Superfund legislation.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cam045.
Georgia Power Company's Scherer plant is one of twelve coal-fired power plants operating in Georgia as of 2009. These plants produce approximately 64 percent of the state's electricity with coal mined in other states.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Photograph by W. A. Bridges..
Georgia Power Company's Bowen coal-fired power plant, pictured in 1977, is located in Bartow County. Toxins produced by burning coal include carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury compounds.Photograph by Charles Pugh.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hercules Inc. in Brunswick, pictured in 2004, is an active chemical processing plant. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified the plant as a Superfund site because of contamination from toxic waste.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A broken gate in Coweta County marks the entrance to a Superfund site, where 2-3 million tires were once burned. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversees the cleanup of toxic-waste sites under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or Superfund).
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Atlantic Steel Mill in Atlanta operated for more than 100 years before closing in 1998. The contamined 138-acre site on which the mill stood was cleaned as part of the largest brownfield reclamation project in the nation. In 2001 it reopened as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use development complex.
Courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Atlantic Station, a development on the west side of Atlanta, was built on a reclaimed brownfield and designed according to the principles of New Urbanism, an architectural movement that offers an alternative to the suburban, automobile-dependent lifestyle.
Courtesy of Atlantic Station
The Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island opened in 2007 to provide veterinary care to injured sea turtles and to educate the public about sea turtle conservation. The facility was built on a reclaimed brownfield, the former site of a coal-fired power plant that had contaminated the property with various industrial toxins.
Courtesy of Georgia Sea Turtle Center
The Tugaloo Dam, located on the Tugaloo River in northeast Georgia, is one of many impoundments that occur within the Savannah River basin. Such dams provide hydroelectric power and water reserves to municipal areas, but they also threaten the health of the watershed's ecosystem.
Photograph by Joel Shiver
The Ogeechee River is one of five rivers that form a collective river basin in Georgia's Coastal Plain. The tea-colored water of these rivers, which are known as blackwater rivers, is caused by high concentrations of dissolved organic material.
Image from Jet Lowe
Fourteen river basins, or watersheds, lie within Georgia's borders. The Altamaha, Ocmulgee, Oconee, Ogeechee, Satilla, Savannah, and St. Marys basins drain into the Atlantic Ocean. The Chattahoochee, Coosa, Flint, Ochlockonee, Suwanee, Tallapoosa, and Tennessee basins drain into the Gulf of Mexico.
Courtesy of Georgia Water Coalition
The Ogeechee River, one of only forty-two free-flowing rivers in the United States longer than 200 kilometers, drains from the eastern part of Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean.
Courtesy of Georgia Rivers LMER
The Savannah River, which forms the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina, begins at Lake Hartwell in northeast Georgia and flows south to Savannah, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
Image from jpellgen (@1179_jp)
The Tallapoosa River (pictured in Elmore County, Alabama) originates in Georgia's Paulding County, west of Atlanta. The river covers 720 square miles in Georgia before entering Alabama, where its remaining 3,960 square miles lie.
Image from cmh2315fl
The Coosa River, formed by the confluence of the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers in Rome, empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The river supports more than 147 species of fish and contains the world's largest diversity of freshwater snails and mussels.
Image from CarolinePope22
The Flint River, which begins in Georgia's Piedmont region, is part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, which drains portions of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. It flows to the Chattahoochee River in southwest Georgia.
Photograph from Doug Bradley
The Chattahoochee River, part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, is one of the nation's most endangered rivers. In addition to providing habitat for birds, mammals, and reptiles, the river supports six endangered or threatened mussel species. The river begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains and flows to southwest Georgia.
Photograph by Dianne Frost
A popular boating destination, West Point Lake in Troup County is formed by an impoundment of the Chattahoochee River. The lake covers 25,900 acres in area and has a shoreline of 525 miles.
Courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The Oconee River begins in the Appalachian Mountains and joins with the Ocmulgee River to form the Altamaha River in Georgia's Upper Coastal Plain. The cities of Athens, Milledgeville, and Dublin are located along the Oconee.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
The Altamaha River, formed by the convergence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers, drains into the Atlantic Ocean at Darien. The Altamaha watershed is the largest in Georgia and the third largest in the United States to drain into the Atlantic.
Courtesy of Georgia Rivers LMER
The Altamaha River watershed provides habitat for numerous nesting and migratory birds, as well as for more than 100 rare and endangered aquatic species.
Image from Electronic Collection of Georgia Birds
A third-order tributary of the Ogeechee River, a blackwater river that begins in Greene County, flows through a densely forested area in the Coastal Plain.
Courtesy of J. L. Meyer
The Satilla River, one of five blackwater rivers in Georgia, begins in Ben Hill County and lies entirely within the Coastal Plain. It drains to the Atlantic Ocean. Pollution levels are very low in the Satilla, which is bordered by cypress and black gum forests.
Courtesy of Georgia Rivers LMER
John Abbot painted his Yellow Breasted Finch (watercolor on paper, 11 1/8" x 8 3/4") in 1790, fifteen years after moving from Virginia to Georgia. A native of England, Abbot traveled to America in 1773 and spent the remainder of his life collecting and drawing specimens of New World birds, insects, and butterflies.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Painter John Abbot's Grebe, Didapper, or Water Witch (watercolor on paper, 11 1/8" x 8 3/4") is housed at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
This bronze plaque depicting the naturalist and illustrator John Abbot graces a monument erected in 1957 by the Georgia Historical Society and the Georgia Historical Commission in Bulloch County. Abbot, a British native, collected and drew numerous specimens of birds, insects, butterflies, and moths during his nearly sixty-five years in Georgia.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of photographs, #GHS 1361PH-24-01-4588.
This watercolor of a butterfly, today identified as the American Painted Lady, is one of many images depicting butterflies and moths by John Abbot, a British collector and illustrator who lived and worked in Georgia from 1775 until around 1840.
From The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia, by J. Abbot
John Abbot, a painter and naturalist, created Little Horn Owl or Screech Owl (watercolor on paper, 11 1/8" x 8 3/4") in 1790. From 1775 until 1818 Abbot lived and worked in present-day Burke County, sending specimens and illustrations of New World species to collectors in his homeland of England.
Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art
Herbert Stoddard, a renowned southern conservationist of the twentieth century, was an authority on the bobwhite quail and a pioneer in the development of both land and wildlife management practices. Much of Stoddard's work was conducted at Sherwood, his 1,000-acre property in Grady County.
Courtesy of Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy
Naturalist Herbert Stoddard ignites a controlled burn on his longleaf pine preserve, Sherwood, in Grady County, circa 1966. Stoddard was a staunch advocate of using fire in the management of the wiregrass and longleaf pine ecosystem of south Georgia.
Courtesy of Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy
Eliza Frances Andrews (pictured ca. 1879) was a writer of journals, novels, newspaper reports, botany articles and textbooks, and editorials. Her published diary, War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865, is one of the most compelling first-person accounts of the Civil War home front.
Courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Lupton Library Special Collections
Image of Eliza Frances Andrews in the War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865, one of the most compelling first-person accounts of the Civil War (1861-65) home front, published in 1908. Eliza Frances Andrews was a writer, newspaper reporter, editor, columnist, social critic, scientist, and educator. By the time of her death in 1931 in Rome, Georgia, Andrews had written three novels, more than a dozen scientific articles on botany, two internationally recognized botany textbooks, and dozens of articles, commentaries, and reports on topics ranging from politics to environmental issues.
Image from The War Time Journal of a Georgia Girl (1908)
A dirt road in rural Madison County showcases Georgia's famous red clay, found throughout the state's Piedmont. The clay's composition of silicon, aluminum, and iron oxides is called saprolite.
Photograph from Elizabeth Prata
A bare fallow field, composed of sandy soil and clay subsoil, in Vienna, Georgia. Soil, which is composed of minerals, organic material, water, and air, is generally less than a meter in depth and forms through the weathering of the earth's surface.
Image from Lee Coursey
Cloudland Canyon State Park is located in Dade County, near the northern end of Lookout Mountain, in the Appalachian Plateau.
Photograph by Jeff Gunn
High Falls State Park, near Jackson in Butts County, is a popular destination along the Towaliga River for camping and boating. The town of High Falls, established in the early 1800s, became a ghost town during the 1880s, when the railroads gained prominence over waterways for commercial transportation.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Black Rock Mountain State Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains is located in Rabun County along the Eastern Continental Divide. At an altitude of 3,640 feet, Black Rock Mountain is the highest state park in Georgia and offers numerous scenic overlooks and hiking trails.
Image from Bradley Huchteman
Indian Springs State Park, located in Butts County, is one of the first two state parks to be established in Georgia. In 1927 the state passed a resolution to preserve the Indian Springs Reserve, and in 1931 the park was founded as part of the newly created Georgia State Parks System.
Image by David Dugan
The F. D. Roosevelt State Park, located on Pine Mountain in Harris County, was named for U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who maintained a home in nearby Warm Springs. The park was established under Roosevelt's New Deal policies in the mid-1930s.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
The Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park in Cordele County was established in honor of U.S. veterans. The park offers a museum featuring wartime memoribilia, as well as a lodge, conference center, and golf course.
Image from Courtney McGough
The fifty-six-room lodge at Amicalola Falls State Park in Dawson County was built during the 1980s. The park's primary attraction is the 729-foot Amicalola Falls, the highest waterfall in Georgia.
Image from J. Stephen Conn
Vogel State Park was established in 1931 as one of the first two state parks in Georgia. Located at the base of Blood Mountain in Union County, Vogel offers scenic mountain trails and close proximity to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in the state.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
Longleaf pines and wiregrass dominate the landscape of southeast Georgia. Pines can grow quickly on clear-cut land, without competition for resources from other trees, especially hardwoods.
Photograph by Roy Cohutta
Several local farmers travel through the Okefenokee Swamp in Ware County, circa 1900. At more than 700 square miles, the Okefenokee is the largest swamp in North America.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
war012.
The Franklinia is a deciduous small tree or large shrub growing fifteen to twenty feet high and ten to fifteen feet wide, with elongated, dark green leaves (which turn red, orange, or pink in the fall) and showy two- to three-inch snow-white flowers, with clusters of golden yellow stamens in the centers.
Image from John Donges
Longleaf pine trees and wiregrass form a distinctive ecosystem in south Georgia. The region's pine forest is divided into three areas: pine and palmetto flats in the east, pine barrens in the interior, and a lime-sink section in the west. Lowland areas of the forest support a variety of other trees as well, including oak, hickory, and cypress.
Photograph by Chris M. Morris
An engine stops at a sawmill in Clinch County, at a now-defunct town called Humphries between Dupont and Stockton, in 1893. The mill was located in the wiregrass region of the state, which was heavily logged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #cln002.
Anthony Head, a worker in a Lowndes County turpentine still, makes barrels for holding rosin, circa 1900. The naval stores industry formed an important part of the economy in wiregrass Georgia, of which Lowndes County is a part, in the early twentieth century.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
low096.
The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) is a migratory species of butterfly that spends part of its life cycle in Georgia.
Image from Vanessa Cardui
The state legislature named the tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) as the official butterfly of Georgia in 1988. The butterfly species is one of several hundred found in the state.
Image from Peter Miller
The knobby ends of its antennae stalk, as well as the upright position of its wings, identify the grey hairstreak (Strymon melinus) as a butterfly, rather than a moth.
Image from mwms1916
Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is one of the best plants for attracting butterflies in Georgia and one of only several species eaten by caterpillars. Caterpillars feed only on the type of plant upon which they hatch, and they can eat several times their weight in food on a single day.
Image from Philip Bouchard
An eastern black swallowtail caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes) feeds on a dill plant. A butterfly or moth caterpillar typically feeds for two to four weeks before beginning its metamorphosis into a butterfly by spinning a silk cocoon.
Photograph by Paul Thomas
Tiger swallowtails (Papilio glaucus) sip from a stream. Georgia's state butterfly, the tiger swallowtail produces two "broods" of caterpillars each season, one in May and the other in July or August.
Image from Vicki DeLoach
Upright verbena (Verbena bonairiensis) is one of the best plants for attracting butterflies in Georgia. The loss of important forage plants, often due to the use of herbicides in agriculture, poses a threat to the survival of many species of butterfly in the state.
Image from Linda De Volder
Wide, sandy beaches like this one on Wassaw Island are typical of Georgia's barrier islands. Wassaw is one of more than a dozen barrier islands that stretch along Georgia's 100-mile coast.
Photograph by Bruce Tuten
Skimmers on the coast of Amelia Island. The tern-like birds feed by flying low over the water, skimming for fish.
Image from Lee Coursey
The forests on Wassaw Island include cedar, oak, and pine, as well as an understory of holly, magnolia, and other plants.
Photograph by Garry Tucker, USFWS
The Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve is committed to research, education, and the sound management of coastal resources in Georgia. It lies in an estuary where the currents of Doboy Sound meet the Duplin River.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
This aerial photograph shows the south end of Sapelo Island and Doboy Sound. Freshwater from the Altamaha River is transported into upper Doboy Sound through the connecting Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and marsh channels.
Courtesy of Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce
The National Estuarine Research Reserve, Sapelo Island.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
Because they tolerate only low-salinity water, Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) are found in sounds, estuaries, salt marshes, and tidal creeks. In the early 1900s Georgia produced more oysters commercially than any other state. Today, Georgia's oyster industry is only worth about $100,000.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
Edible shrimps, like this white shrimp (Penaeus setiferus), depend on healthy estuaries for their survival. After spawning in the Atlantic Ocean from late March to September, the larval shrimp enter estuaries, where they feed on bottom algae, small animals, and debris. Within a few months they return to ocean waters as adults.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
Coastal tides bring nutrients from estuaries connected by tidal creeks to the marshes. Outgoing tides carry nutritious marsh products back into the estuaries. There, the products help to sustain large numbers of other marine organisms. The outgoing tides also remove wastes from the marsh.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Red drum (Scaenops occelatus), also known as "spottail bass," live the first four years of life in estuaries, where they feed primarily on shrimp and crabs.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
Located in Dawson County, Amicalola Falls derives its name from the Native American word meaning "tumbling waters." Just one of many waterfalls in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains, Amicalola Falls is the highest, with a drop of 729 feet.
Photograph by Ryan McKee
Brasstown Bald, located partly in Union County and partly in Towns County, was formed by the breaching of thrust faults by erosion, resulting in the exposure of rocks once deeply buried in the Appalachian Mountains. Situated in the Blue Ridge province, Brasstown Bald is the highest point in Georgia.
Photograph by Vicki's Nature
The Russell-Brasstown Scenic Byway is a forty-one-mile paved loop that lies entirely within the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains. It extends north from Helen to Brasstown Bald and then southwest to Raven Cliff Falls and Wilderness Area and Dukes Creek Falls. Due to changes in elevation, the byway enjoys an extended fall color season.
Image from Thomson200
The falls and scenery at Tallulah Gorge State Park, located in northeast Georgia, attract thousands of visitors each year. The gorge, located in the state's Blue Ridge geological province, is cut through a large section of the metamorphic rock quartzite.
Image from Martin Bravenboer
In 1838 a federal Branch Mint went into operation at Dahlonega. It coined more than $100,000 worth of gold in its first year, and by the time it closed in 1861, it had produced almost 1.5 million gold coins with a face value of more than $6 million.
Courtesy of Dahlonega Mountain Signal
Black bears (Ursus americanus) are commonly found in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains in places like the Chattooga River watershed. They also are found along the Ocmulgee River drainage system in central Georgia and along the Okefenokee Swamp in southeast Georgia.
Photograph by Terry Spivey, USDA Forest Service
As part of his exploration of what is now the state of Georgia, Hernando de Soto traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains. He likely spent time near Carters Lake, which is near Ellijay in Gilmer County.
Courtesy of Florida State Archives, Photographic Collection.
This photograph shows workers at a sawmill in Rabun County circa 1900. Logging operations such as this one in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains removed many old-growth trees, including these huge specimens.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
rab334.
This photograph shows a group of men standing beside a moonshine still near Ellijay in Gilmer County. Although moonshining was practiced throughout Georgia, it is most often associated with the Blue Ridge Mountains in north Georgia, where moonshine "wars" occurred throughout the late nineteenth century.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gil001.
Visitors to St. Simons Island gather on its pier in the late nineteenth century. The tourism industry, still a primary economic activity on the island today, began in the 1870s, and by the 1880s a grand hotel and pier had been built on the southeastern end of the island.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
The lighthouse on St. Simons Island, pictured during a fireworks display in 1989, replaced the island's original lighthouse, which was dynamited by Confederate troops in 1862 as they retreated from Union forces. The occupying Union troops used the island as a camp for freedpeople.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
Fort Frederica, pictured in 1905, was built by James Oglethorpe on St. Simons Island in 1736. From the time of its establishment until 1749, the fort served as the headquarters for the British military on the Georgia coast.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
Ebos Landing, pictured in 2004, was the site of an 1803 slave rebellion, during which a group of Ebo Africans drowned themselves rather than submit to slavery.
Photograph by Elisabeth Hughes, New Georgia Encyclopedia
The Retreat Plantation house on St. Simons Island was owned by Major William Page from 1804 until his death in 1827, when his daughter, Anna Matilda Page, and her husband, Thomas Butler King, inherited it. The house, no longer standing, was located on the southwestern tip of the island.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
Timber from St. Simons Lumber Mills on St. Simons Island was shipped to market from this dock in Brunswick. After coming to a halt during the Civil War, the timber industry on the island was revived during the 1870s.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
The village on St. Simons Island, pictured in 1946, grew during World War II, with the establishment of a naval air base and radar school on the island. In addition to a growing permanent population, St. Simons also attracted increasing numbers of vacationers from the mainland during the war.
Courtesy of Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
A marsh in Glynn County is pictured from Jekyll Island in 2004. Poet Sidney Lanier was inspired to write "The Marshes of Glynn" (1879) after a visit to Brunswick. The poem's narrator begins with a rhythmic description of the thick marsh before his vision expands seaward, culminating in an epiphany that the vast marshes and sea are filled with power and mystery.
Photograph by Moultrie Creek
The salt marsh on Sapelo Island is composed primarily of smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), as are the salt marshes all along the Georgia coast. Other salt-tolerant plants, including needlerush (Juncus roemerianus), compete with Spartina in higher marsh areas, which receive a greater influx of freshwater from the mainland.
Courtesy of Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce
Tidal marshes originated around 18,000 years ago, when water from melting glaciers created lagoons behind barrier islands. Clay and sand deposits eventually accumulated in the lagoons and began to support populations of the dominant marsh plant that provides both food and protection to a variety of fauna. The marshes are especially important as nursery grounds for several species of marine life.
Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.
Smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), the dominant plant species in Georgia's tidal marshes, forms the basis of the salt-marsh food chain. When the plants die, they are broken down by bacteria and fungi into minute particles called detritus, which washes into estuaries and tidal creeks and is consumed by small marine organisms.
Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Estuarine Research Reserve Collection.
While alligators often feed in Georgia's salt marshes, the only reptile inhabitants of the marshes are diamondback terrapins (Malachlenys terrapin; adult female pictured). Other animals residing in the marshe
