Jekyll Island Celebrates 75 Years As State Park With Trip Through The Past

It’s been 75 years since Jekyll Island was transformed from an exclusive resort for the rich to a lively adventurescape for all. Since 1947, the 5,700-acre island has made significant architectural and cultural improvements—creating accessible pathways to the coastline, embracing the island’s natural wonders, and integrating Georgia’s first African American beaches.

But even before then, the island played host to plenty of interesting—even pathbreaking—figures. Among them was Kate Allerton Papin, a Chicago native who made national headlines when she became the first woman granted membership to the elusive Jekyll Island Club, whose members included prominent Gilded Age families such as the Morgans, the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts.

“This was unique,” says Andrea Marroquin, Curator of the Jekyll Island Museum, “as many private clubs were exclusively for either men or women.”

Papin, a widow and socialite, inherited her membership from her father, Samuel Waters Allerton, a banker once considered the third wealthiest man in Chicago. She was granted access to the island, special Club accommodations, hunting privileges and permission to participate in activities such as golf, tennis, croquet, lawn bowling and horseback riding. Hunting, especially, became an inclusive activity in which women like Papin played an important role.

Still, there were limits. Papin expressed interest in buying into the Sans Souci, the apartment complex built on the island in 1906, but the Club objected because she was a widow. Instead, J.P. Morgan ended up buying Papin’s desired apartment. And when she married her second husband, Hugo Richards Johnstone, she transferred her membership to him, only retaining it after his death in 1907.

Papin’s admittance into the Club paved the way for other women to become full members. As a result, the Club’s priorities expanded. “The women, involved in philanthropic efforts in their home cities, were very interested in the social welfare of the area,” says Marroquin.

They introduced charity balls and galas, helped establish a school for children of Club staff, and spearheaded the opening of a hospital in Brunswick. And like their male counterparts, they also made time for less serious activities.

For Kate Allerton Papin and the early ladies of Jekyll, hunting became an inclusive activity in which women played an important role.

Inspired by their penchant for spoon and egg races on bicycles, the Club’s female members created the Ladies Rough Riding Obstacle Bicycle Society, which eventually catalyzed the development of the island’s more than 20 miles of scenic trails. Women like Papin not only succeeded in becoming a part of the Jekyll Island Club, but changed the Club—and Jekyll Island—for the better.

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As Jekyll Island celebrates 75 years since its initiation as “a playground for every Georgian,” it is important that we recognize much of this lost history and unearth the island’s many hidden wonders.

Over the years, Jekyll Island has evolved into something much more than a lush winter respite for the nation’s wealthy. It has embraced its unique position as a host of natural wonders, establishing the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, which has rehabilitated nearly 4,000 patients; and has built cultural institutions like Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum, to allow visitors to discover the island’s rich history for themselves.

Jekyll has acted as both a bastion of the past and a bright beacon of future progress—providing the setting for myriad historical events, such as the first long distance telephone call between AT&T President Theodore Newton Vail, who participated from Jekyll Island, and Alexander Graham Bell in 1915, as well as hosting the secret gathering that laid the foundation for the Federal Reserve Bank in 1910. The island was also the site of the last slave ship to land in Georgia in 1858; today its Wanderer Memory Trail pays homage to the region’s rich Black history.

Now, in 2022, Jekyll Island is much more than the “playground” it was declared by Governor M.E. Thompson 75 years ago. It is a celebration of past, present, and future; a tribute to local lands and cultures, and a mosaic of hidden wonders and historical advancements made by oft-forgotten individuals like Kate Papin.

To celebrate 75 years as a public oasis—and even longer as a site for significant history-making—the Mosaic museum has staged a State-Era exhibition to honor Jekyll’s evolution since becoming a state park. For more information on the 75th Anniversary, visit https://www.jekyllisland.com/75.