Museums Showcase Coastal Ga.’s Rich Heritage
Published Aug 18, 2009
Coastal Georgia overflows with options for military and maritime history buffs.
The region is home to the oldest English fort remaining on the East Coast, Georgia’s oldest standing brick fort and a museum dedicated to “The Mighty 8th” Air Force from World War II. Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, housed in an historic Savannah mansion, pays homage to the era of Atlantic trade and travel between England and America with ship models and antiques. The St. Marys Submarine Museum in Camden County includes exhibits, artifacts and memorabilia that detail the history of the “Silent Service.”
“A lot of people decide history is dead. They think it is boring and not experiential tourism,” says Carey Ferrara, coastal tourism representative with the Georgia Department of Economic Development. “Our sites are very good about making it real. They fire cannons, cook by fire, dress in costumes, teach kids what toys of the time were about.”
Ferrara has two favorites. Fort Pulaski, east of Savannah, took what is considered the first significant fire from rifled cannons in 1862. “The view from the fort is beautiful, and actual cannonballs where they hit and stuck in the brick are still there,” she says. “It is not a re-creation but actual history.”
Where Red Coats Lived
Fort King George is another favorite – for the opposite reason. From 1721 to 1736, the fort in Darien was the British Empire’s southern outpost in North America. Remnants of the original fort on the Altamaha River remain, but old records and drawings helped create an authentic reconstruction.
“It is not the original, but they did such a fabulous job,” Ferrara says. “You really get a feel of what it was like to live in that era in a fort.”
The “new” Fort King George has a palisade, a blockhouse, officer quarters, barracks, a guardhouse and moat. The fort hosts battle re-enactments twice a year, with craft and trade demonstrations that show life from 1720 to 1740.
More than 40,000 people visit annually, and special holiday events with musket and cannon fire are big draws.
“People love to see the big bang, and we give it to them,” says Jason Baker, ranger at Fort King George Historic Site.
St. Simons Island has Fort Frederica National Monument and Bloody Marsh, where British and Scottish soldiers ended Spanish incursions outside Florida.
Old Fort Jackson in Savannah was the Confederate headquarters for the city’s maritime defense. Fort McAllister in Richmond Hill, now a state park, was built within the earth, with sand and mud covering the troops’ quarters.
Contemporary military history gets its due at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Pooler. The complex, 90,000 square feet, includes a re-creation of Molesworth Airfield in England, where the Mighty Eighth arrived after Pearl Harbor. Visitors get a mission briefing in a Quonset hut surrounded by a 90-foot mural that captures life on the ground for members of the fabled air armada.
The collection includes thousands of artifacts from aircraft to weaponry and hand-painted bomber jackets. The museum targets U.S. air power from World War II forward, and it collects oral histories from battles that include current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Story by Pamela Coyle
Current Weather Conditions In Brunswick, GA (31520)
Mostly Cloudy, and 62 ° F. For more details?
Click here...
