Tybee Island

By Sarah Pierson Jones

Tybee Island has fought hard to survive wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, the Great Depression, and even Prohibition, and while Tybee fights hard, Tybee plays hard. Tybee has a unique story as one of the top tourist destinations of the early 20th century. From the early days, when people could only reach Tybee by train, to the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, souvenir postcards tell the story of Tybee's unique and diverse history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: May 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781439666784

Sarah Pierson Jones

Sarah Pierson Jones is the executive director of the Tybee Island Historical Society. She arrived on Tybee in 2006 to begin work, under the directorship of the late Cullen Chambers, as the archivist for the society after receiving her master's degree in historic preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design. During her work, she and Chambers discovered that the postcards of Tybee Island could tell a story all on their own. This book is the culmination of a 10-year effort to collect and archive the best examples of Tybee Island postcards.

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Society.

INTRODUCTION

One might ask why a book on postcards? What is their importance?

The answers to these questions are that postcards leave a legacy of people’s stories, a memento of a happy time spent with friends, a way to let loved ones know someone is thinking about them, but most importantly, they record history. They record people, places, and times, documenting everything from architecture to fashion styles.

They remind us of the many postcards we have written and sent, and we cannot help but wonder if a postcard we write and send with love will one day end up in a museum.

Well, the postcards in this book have.

Every postcard in this book is part of a museum collection, and if it were not for the people who sent them, there would not be such a strong record of Tybee’s history or how that history changed the places and people on this small island. These postcards show how the railroad changed Tybee into a major resort town, they show how the million dollar road made it possible for the year-round community to grow, and they mark a great event like the 1996 Olympic Games, which helped Tybee’s declining economy.

It is just as important that we remember Tybee’s early history, but unfortunately, the Native Americans, Spanish explorers, and pirates did not send postcards. Nor were they a popular way to correspond during the American Revolution and Civil War. Thankfully, there are many historians out there who have a love of Tybee and have spent hours of their time researching and writing books about Tybee Island’s early history.

However, this book focuses on Tybee’s more recent history—the history of one of the most popular resort towns on the Southeast coast, where big bands such as Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller came to play and a small town developed around the tourist industry, an industry that is still a factor in supporting a community that today is only 3,000 strong.

I hope you will humor me for a little longer and allow me to tell you about how I came to Tybee and how this book developed.

When I first arrived to work on Tybee Island in 2006, I knew the bare minimum when it came to Tybee’s history. A fresh graduate with a master’s in fine arts in historic preservation, I was ready to go, ready to make a difference, and when I was lucky enough to land a job with the Tybee Island Historical Society, I knew it was a perfect fit.

There was one thing I had not counted on though, and that was Tybee Time. While I was ready to leap in and move things along, Tybee was quietly moving along at her own pace and would not be rushed into anything. So, stepping back, I realized that the best thing I could do was learn her history, figure out what makes her tick, and discover what makes people fall in love with her.

The way I began this process was by archiving all of the historical society’s treasures. The archives were extensive and varied, and with the guidance of the executive director of the historical society, Cullen Chambers, I began the process of making sure that I archived, digitally recorded, properly stored, and moved offsite to a safe location all of Tybee’s important treasures.

During this process, Cullen introduced me to the society’s extensive postcard collection. There were amazing images, and some even had messages on the back that documented the history, places, and people who spent time visiting or living on Tybee Island. As we sorted through the postcards, Cullen and I started to bat around the idea of a postcard book. He liked the idea and began the process by instructing me to gather up all the digital images we had of postcards while he began to increase our collection as quickly as he could.

He met with locals who had private collections, and donations were made; it is important to note that this book would not have been possible without these donated images. Cullen had talked with Arcadia off and on for a few years with the intention of writing just such book, but before anything could be decided, he passed away. Knowing that he would have loved to see the book written, I reached out to Arcadia, and they were still interested, so this book was begun and, this time, finished.

I also feel it is necessary to include in this introduction a little history of how the historical society was founded. It is a bit off the topic of postcards, I know, but it is important because without all those who came before the founding of the Tybee Island Historical Society and their years of stewardship of Tybee Island’s history, this book would not have been possible. It started in 1961 when the City of Tybee Island founded the