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Published: December 11th 2006
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Tybee Island
Tybee Island, Georgia - United States of America Oct 10, 2005
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City official name :Tybee Island
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Founded date : *
Location :Georgia State
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Elavation :? ft (? m)
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Area :Approximately ? square miles (? km²).
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Facts :Tybee Island is an island and a present-day city in Chatham County, Georgia near the city of Savannah. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 3,392. The island, which includes the city of the same name, had a population of 3,713.
Tybee Island may be best known outside of Georgia as the home of the Tybee Bomb, a nuclear weapon that was lost offshore on February 5, 1958. Officially renamed "Savannah Beach" in a publicity move at the end of the 1950s, the city of Tybee Island has since reverted to its original name (although maps show the use of the name "Savannah Beach" as far back as 1952 on official state maps). The small island, which has long been a quiet getaway for the residents of Savannah, has become a popular vacation and wedding spot with tourists from outside the Savannah metropolitan area.
Tybee Island is also the site of the first of what became the Days Inn chain of hotels.
Tybee Island
Tybee Island, Georgia - United States of America Tybee Island was originally inhabited by the Euchee Native American tribe and gave the island its name: tybee is a Euchee word for salt.
Later, in the 1500s the Spanish laid claim to the island and named it Los Bajos. It was at the northern end of the Guale missionary province of Spanish Florida. During that time the island was frequented by pirates who used the island to hide from those who pursued them. Pirates later used the island’s inland waterways for a fresh water source. After the founding of South Carolina in 1670, warfare increased between the English and Spanish and their allied Indians as well as South Carolina's pirate allies. In 1702 James Moore of South Carolina led an invasion of Spanish Florida with an Indian army and a fleet of pirates. The invasion failed to take the capital of Florida, St. Augustine, but did destroy the Guale and Mocama missionary provinces, raiding and enslaving Indians throughout the Sea Islands, including Tybee Island. After another invasion of Spanish Florida by South Carolina in 1704, Spanish power was limited to St. Augustine and Pensacola and the Sea Islands were depopulated, allowing the establishment of new English settlements such
Tybee Island
Tybee Island, Georgia - United States of America as the colony of Georgia.
In 1733 English settlers led by James Oglethorpe settled on Tybee Island before moving on to settle eventually in Savannah. In 1736 John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, arrived on Tybee Island.
The Tybee Island lighthouse was built in the year 1736. The lighthouse was made of brick and wood,and was standing 90 feet tall; it was the highest structure in America at that time. Five years later the lighthouse was destroyed by a horrible storm.
In 1742 a second lighthouse was finished; this version reached 94 feet tall 4 feet taller than the first lighthouse. In 1773 a third lighthouse was built which was also destroyed, this time in 1862 by Confederate troops from nearby Fort Pulaski. Of the 100 feet of the third lighthouse only 60 feet remained which served as a rebuilding point for a fourth lighthouse.
In 1869 it was decided that the lighthouse must be protected from ever increasing tides and gale force winds so it was moved 164 feet back from the shoreline. In the years from 1871 and 1886 the walls of the lighthouse became cracked by storm forces and later the light
Tybee Island
Tybee Island, Georgia - United States of America lens was broken by the Charleston earthquake of 1886.
The latest incarnation of the Tybee Island lighthouse stands at 154 feet and in 1933 became an electrically driven lighthouse. Due to the fact that modern marine navigation techniques outgrew the need for such a lighthouse the Tybee Island lighthouse became obsolete. Just three weeks after it became electrically driven it was donated to the Georgia Historical Society by the U.S. government.
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