Aerial.America.S02E05.Georgia
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00:00Georgia, from a stunning coast where nature runs wild, across fields of cotton, to snow-dusted peaks at the end of one of the world's longest hiking trails.
00:15This is a state loved by presidents, writers, and a civil rights leader who sought to heal the nation with a transcendent dream.
00:26Aerial Georgia explores the rich history of this southern state, from mysterious traces of its ancient people to painful memories of America's war-torn past.
00:39It was here that a visionary adman revolutionized television news, and a terrorist tried to destroy the Olympic dreams of thousands.
00:50Where a small pioneer town was home to America's first gold rush, and a city once leveled by war rose again to glimmer from the ashes.
01:08This is Georgia, the Empire State of the South.
01:51In the northwest corner of Georgia, on the banks of the Etowah River, stand the relics of a lost world.
02:01These earthen monuments were built by an ancient society known to archaeologists as the Mississippian Mound Builders.
02:11These people and their structures may be gone, but the outlines of their once sophisticated culture remain.
02:21From this six-story tall mound, it's believed that the city's chief priest may have presided over ceremonies on a bustling plaza down below.
02:31Smaller mounds may have been used as burial sites, or to support the homes of other prominent citizens.
02:41Many details about these Native Americans and their culture remain a mystery.
02:49Mound builders were the ancestors of the Creek and Cherokee, who dominated Georgia in the centuries that followed.
03:00But the U.S. government eventually pressed these tribes to move to Oklahoma, and in 1838, forcibly relocated those that remained.
03:12An estimated 4,000 Native Americans died on the journey, which is known as the Trail of Tears.
03:21Nearby, the Chattahoochee National Forest covers almost 750,000 acres of rugged landscape, including Springer Mountain.
03:31It's the southern endpoint of the Appalachian Trail, which starts 2,000 miles north in the state of Maine.
03:40One historian dismissed this region as nothing but a desert with trees.
03:46But rattlesnakes, copperheads, and black bears all live here.
03:52North Georgia is also home to hidden treasure.
03:59Legend has it that in 1828, a deer hunter here tripped over a shiny rock that turned out to be nearly pure gold.
04:07A year later, a newspaper reported that gold was discovered in Habersham County,
04:13and practically overnight, giddy prospectors by the thousands poured into the region.
04:19It was the nation's first major gold rush.
04:25By 1861, enough gold was discovered here for the local Federal Mint to produce 1.5 million gold coins.
04:31Much of the mined gold was transported on the newly completed Unicoit Turnpike,
04:37which is the largest gold mine in the state.
04:44Much of the mined gold was transported on the newly completed Unicoit Turnpike,
04:50a toll road that stretched from the Appalachian Mountains through this swath of northeast Georgia.
05:00Along this route was a gold rush town named Dahlonega, from the Cherokee word for yellow money.
05:09The city prospered until 1849, when news of California's gold rush lured the miners west.
05:18Today, Dahlonega is home to North Georgia College and State University,
05:23but the town doesn't shy away from its golden past.
05:27Every October, visitors from around the world come here to celebrate Gold Rush Day,
05:33in a town center that looks like it's right out of the 19th century.
05:41But when it comes to Georgia's natural resources, none has shaped her history and economy like these crops,
05:47what the locals call white gold, cotton.
05:53Cotton seed was first planted here in 1785, though it took growers nearly 10 years to make a profit.
06:00By the mid-19th century, most of Georgia's bounty was being shipped 1,000 miles away,
06:06to feed the North's prosperous textile mills, while the South's economy lagged far behind.
06:13Determined to right the imbalance, a civic leader put forward an innovative plan,
06:18to build an industrial canal alongside the Savannah River in Augusta.
06:24In 1845, the first shovels began digging out Augusta's red, rich clay,
06:30and a few years later, water was coursing through this canal,
06:35water that soon powered new textile factories.
06:39Today, this approximately 11-mile-long waterway produces hydroelectric power.
06:45The canal and mills are the first National Heritage Area in Georgia designated by the United States Congress.
06:55By the late 19th century, thanks to its mills, Augusta was booming,
07:01and in 1897, bricks were laid to build this Catholic church.
07:07Three years later, this impressive structure was complete, and ready for worship.
07:15But with more and more Augustans moving to the suburbs in the 20th century,
07:20this giant church couldn't sustain itself, and closed its doors in 1971.
07:26The building endured 16 years of vandalism and neglect,
07:31before being renovated and reopened in 1987 as the Sacred Heart Cultural Center.
07:37Today, it's a venue for weddings, wine festivals, and concerts.
07:50But Augusta, Georgia may be best known for the Augusta National Golf Club.
07:56Every April, the world's best golfers descend on this former plantation to compete in the Masters Tournament.
08:04An aerial view of the club provides a window into a pristine world few people ever see in person.
08:12Tickets to the event are among the toughest to obtain of any sporting event in the country.
08:18They haven't been available to the general public since 1972.
08:25Golf Digest rates Augusta as the best course in America.
08:30Its exclusive membership roster includes billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, among other prominent names.
08:37Notably absent from that list is a single female member.
08:42Women can play here as guests, and work as caddies,
08:46but the Old Boys Club stands fiercely resistant to changing its ways.
08:56About 90 miles southeast lies a city with a colorful past, Milledgeville.
09:04The town was established in 1804 as the state capital, on land acquired from Creek Indians.
09:11During its first decade, this scraggly frontier town was known for its seedy inns, bordellos, and gambling.
09:19But slowly, things began to change.
09:23One of the capital's most important new buildings was the Governor's Mansion.
09:30Built in the Greek Revival style, the mansion was restored in 2001,
09:36and is now a National Historic Landmark and a museum.
09:46Milledgeville was also home to one of Georgia's most celebrated authors, Flannery O'Connor.
09:55The budding author had moved to the northeast after college,
09:58but a lupus diagnosis in 1950 brought her back to this place, a 544-acre family farm called Andalusia.
10:09It was here, cared for by her mother, that she completed her most famous novels and short stories,
10:15such as A Good Man is Hard to Find, that explore the theme of a decaying south.
10:21O'Connor spent her final days doing what she loved,
10:25raising peacocks and drawing inspiration from the landscape surrounding Andalusia.
10:32She died of lupus in 1964, at the age of just 39.
10:42A few miles away stands the old state capitol building.
10:47With its pointed arched windows and rooftop battlements,
10:50it's considered one of the oldest public buildings in America built in the Gothic Revival style.
10:57But it's what happened inside that forever changed the course of history.
11:03It was here, in January 1861, that Georgia lawmakers voted 160 to 130 in favor of secession from the United States.
11:14This 30-vote majority would plunge the state into four years of war and devastate many of its cities.
11:25Right in the middle of the state sits the city of Macon, nicknamed the Heart of Georgia.
11:34From the air, its quaint neighborhoods offer a stunning glimpse of the Old South.
11:40There are dozens of homes here that look just as they did in the late 19th century.
11:47Many of them were built on the spoils of King Cotton.
11:52But Macon's crown jewel is a mansion on Georgia Avenue known as Hay House.
11:59The four-story home with a cupola above was built between 1855 and 1859 by railroad magnate William Butler Johnson.
12:11He and his bride had fallen in love with Italian architecture during their honeymoon in Europe
12:17and decided to bring the elegance of the old world back to Georgia.
12:22Not only was the 24-room, 16,000-square-foot residence magnificent to behold,
12:28it was also one of the most innovative homes of its day, complete with hot and cold running water and central heating.
12:37No wonder Hay House earned the nickname the Palace of the South.
12:52Within just two years of the completion of Hay House, the glory days of the Old South were subsumed by cannon fire, bloodshed, and fear.
13:03In northeast Georgia, the little town of Washington is best known for an unsolved mystery, the case of the lost Confederate gold.
13:13Right after the Civil War ended, federal troops seized what was left of the Confederate treasury.
13:19But right outside of Washington, renegades stole the fortune back.
13:23The stash, now estimated to be worth a million dollars, has never been accounted for.
13:30Many are convinced it was hidden nearby.
13:34In the distance, a giant dome pushes up from the earth.
13:39This is Stone Mountain, an 800-foot-tall solid granite monolith.
13:46It was born over 300 million years ago, at the time that the Appalachian Mountains were formed.
13:52You'd have to walk five miles just to circle its base.
13:57A visitor center and TV radio transmitter now sit atop Stone Mountain.
14:03But there was a time when it was a meeting place for the Ku Klux Klan, its peak crowned with a burning cross.
14:11Today, Stone Mountain bears other memories.
14:16In 1916, the Klan took over the city.
14:21The city was a small settlement, but the land was rich.
14:26The city was a small settlement, but the land was rich.
14:30The city was a small settlement, but the land was rich.
14:34Today, Stone Mountain bears other memories.
14:39In 1916, the United Daughters of the Confederacy got permission to oversee the carving of a Civil War monument here.
14:48The finished work covers three acres of rock face and took 57 years to complete.
14:55It depicts three Confederate heroes, President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and General Thomas Stonewall Jackson.
15:09By the 1960s, Stone Mountain had become so emblematic of hatred and racism,
15:15it even got a mention in Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous I Have a Dream speech,
15:19when he said,
15:22Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain in Georgia.
15:35Less than 20 miles away stands the city that would feel the Civil War's fiery wrath like no other,
15:42Atlanta.
15:45It was founded in 1837 and named for the railroad on which the city was built,
15:52Atlantica Pacifica, shortened to Atlanta.
15:57And in 1868, it became the state capitol.
16:03The design of the Georgia Statehouse followed the same neoclassical style used for the U.S. Capitol building in Washington,
16:10but it maintained some distinctly local touches.
16:15Inside, one and a half acres of Georgia marble line its floors and hallways.
16:21Amazingly, the building's dome was originally adorned with 43 ounces of real 23-carat Georgia gold,
16:29mined not far away in Lumpkin County.
16:33On top of the dome is a 15-foot tall, 2,000-pound statue known as Miss Freedom.
16:40Just a stone's throw away, Centennial Olympic Park was created to be a town square for the 1996 Summer Olympics,
16:59but it's best remembered as the scene of a domestic terrorist attack.
17:05On the night of July 27, 1996, the largest pipe bomb in U.S. history was detonated in the midst of a concert,
17:14killing one person and injuring 111 others.
17:19Confessed bomber Eric Rudolph had hoped to force the cancellation of the games,
17:24but Atlanta would not be bullied, and the games went on.
17:28It's hard to believe that the gleaming metropolis standing here today was once a wasteland.
17:43In 1864, after a weeks-long artillery bombardment of the city,
17:48General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered all civilians to evacuate.
17:52His troops set fire to the city, and everything except for churches and hospitals burned to the ground.
18:05From the ashes, Atlanta slowly but surely rebuilt.
18:12Here, in the 1920s, lived a struggling young writer, inspired by the epic tales of her state's war-torn past.
18:20It was inside apartment number one of this building that Margaret Mitchell penned most of the wildly popular novel, Gone with the Wind.
18:29In her later years, Mitchell frequently remarked about how much she hated living here.
18:34Little could she have imagined the apartment she referred to as The Dump would one day serve as the Margaret Mitchell Museum.
18:42But while Mitchell's own accommodations were humble, those of her characters were not.
18:47According to Georgia lore, this plantation house in nearby Jonesboro was Margaret Mitchell's inspiration for Terra, the iconic setting of Gone with the Wind.
18:58This Greek Revival-style plantation house was built in 1839, and true to its name, lies amidst a grove of stately old oaks.
19:07One can't help but imagine Scarlett O'Hara twirling about the porch, sipping lemonade.
19:13Atlanta's history, though, has been anything but storybook.
19:18A century after the Civil War, the city fell again on hard times.
19:23In the 1980s, it was this company's headquarters that came to Atlanta's rescue.
19:29Originally intended to be an entertainment complex, this 100,000-square-foot building was bought in 1985 by a successful Georgia ad man, Ted Turner.
19:39He used it to house the world's first 24-hour news channel, CNN.
19:46By locating his company's headquarters downtown, Turner helped revitalize the city.
19:58Just a mile from the heart of downtown Atlanta lies a place that was once a world away.
20:04The neighborhood of Sweet Auburn.
20:07It was here, on January 15, 1929, in the upstairs room of this yellow house, where one of Atlanta's most distinguished sons, Martin Luther King Jr., was born.
20:19His father, Martin Luther King Sr., was an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement and pastor of nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church.
20:27It was here where Martin Jr. was both baptized and ordained, and it was the site of his funeral in 1968.
20:40But it's the King Center, just next door, that serves as his memorial.
20:45In the midst of what's called Freedom Plaza, surrounded by a five-tier reflecting pool,
20:51In the midst of what's called Freedom Plaza, surrounded by a five-tier reflecting pool,
20:57lies the body of Martin Luther King Jr.
21:02His marble crypt bears the words,
21:05Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.
21:12The Carter Center
21:19Two miles from downtown, on a hill from which General Sherman monitored the siege of Atlanta, is the Carter Center.
21:27Founded by President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalind in 1982, the center's mission is to advance human rights and end human suffering around the world.
21:38Four of the five interconnected pavilions house staff offices and meeting spaces.
21:43The fifth is home to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
21:53150 miles outside of Atlanta lies a wilder Georgia.
21:59Magnolia Springs State Park is best known for its cool springs, which produce close to 9 million gallons of water a day, and for its pristine 28-acre lake.
22:12It may look like any other unspoiled stretch of Georgia wilderness, but during the Civil War, it was the setting of Camp Lawton,
22:19a Confederate stockade that imprisoned about 10,000 Union soldiers, 500 of whom died in the camp.
22:28Though nature has largely erased the park's wartime past, in the summer of 2010, a team of archaeology students dug up about 200 Civil War artifacts from here.
22:39The site, undisturbed since the camp's abandonment in 1864, is expected to yield unprecedented information about the lives of prisoners and guards at the camp.
22:51The vestiges of an even larger Confederate prison lie about 130 miles south of Atlanta, the notorious Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville.
23:05This clearing was once home to a 26.5-acre stockade.
23:10Some 45,000 prisoners entered its gates over its 14-month existence.
23:16Many never made it out.
23:21Overcrowding, disease, and starvation made for a grim existence here.
23:30Said one Union soldier,
23:32As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror.
23:39Stallworth men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin.
23:50No wonder many of the prisoners believed they had died and gone to hell.
23:57Fifteen-foot walls like these once surrounded the entire stockade.
24:03Makeshift tents and huts were all that stood between the prisoners and the elements.
24:09Guards were perched in towers along the fence line.
24:13Anyone getting within three feet of the wall was shot dead.
24:18All told, 13,000 souls perished in the hellhole that was Andersonville.
24:26Their naked bodies were carted off in wagons, buried shoulder to shoulder in three-foot-deep trenches.
24:34So cruel and inhumane was the treatment at Andersonville that after the war, the prison commandant was convicted of war crimes and hanged.
24:48After the camp closed, Clara Barton led a detachment here to identify and mark the graves of the Union dead.
24:57On August 17, 1865, she raised the stars and stripes over the cemetery for the first time.
25:06Since the Civil War, 6,000 more veterans have been buried here, including active-duty servicemen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
25:25There's a slice of the American Southwest tucked into Southwest Georgia.
25:30It's called Providence Canyon.
25:35Seeing this natural wonder from the air offers a chance to glimpse 16 distinct gorges, some plunging to depths of more than 100 feet.
25:46Georgians call this place Little Grand Canyon, but these massive gullies aren't the work of Mother Nature alone.
25:53The primary sculptor is rainwater runoff from poor farming practices in the 1800s.
26:00But what beauty that erosion has revealed.
26:03Within Providence Canyon, several million years of Georgia's geological record stand exposed.
26:10The sands of time in 43 distinct colors.
26:15Thirty-five miles north lies Fort Benning, home of the U.S. Army Infantry School.
26:21Named for Confederate Brigadier General Henry Benning, a native of the area.
26:27It was built during World War I with the express purpose of providing a military base for the U.S. Army.
26:34It was also the home of the U.S. Army Infantry School.
26:37Fort Benning, a native of the area.
26:41It was built during World War I with the express purpose of producing the world's finest combat infantrymen.
26:48Fort Benning has turned out such distinguished military leaders as Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and Colin Powell.
26:58The 287 square mile base also operates an airborne school for paratroopers, a ranger school for elite skills and tactics,
27:08and a program that teaches soldiers how to operate M2 Bradley fighting vehicles in combat.
27:14About 35 miles north, outside the town of Warm Springs, is a much more peaceful place.
27:22Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Little White House.
27:26Stricken with polio, FDR first came here in 1924 after hearing about the spring's restorative powers.
27:34He didn't find a cure, but he did fall in love with the town.
27:38and purchased 1,200 acres here in 1926, where he built a polio treatment center.
27:44This six-room structure was built in 1932, a year before Roosevelt was elected president.
27:51It often served as a presidential retreat.
27:55On April 12th, 1945, Roosevelt was inside sitting for a portrait when he suddenly grabbed a piece of paper.
28:02On April 12th, 1945, Roosevelt was inside sitting for a portrait when he suddenly grabbed his head complaining of a sharp pain.
28:13A few minutes later, America's longest-serving president would be dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
28:22Roosevelt's legacy lives on in a national park that bears his name.
28:28After bathing in the Warm Springs nearby, he used to come to this park for picnics.
28:34With 9,000 acres of protected wilderness, the F.D. Roosevelt State Park is the largest state park in Georgia.
28:46To the south, in Somerville, is a very different kind of park.
28:51This is Paradise Gardens, the legacy of Baptist minister and self-taught artist Howard Finster.
28:59In 1961, Finster claimed to hear the voice of God commanding him to create sacred art, and the Reverend obeyed.
29:09He used found materials like bottle caps, rusty bicycle parts, and old jewelry to construct thousands of unusual works of art.
29:18Many consider this handcrafted five-story building to be his masterpiece.
29:23Built around a pre-existing church, it's known as the world's folk art chapel.
29:30Paradise Gardens may look familiar to fans of the band R.E.M.
29:34It was featured in the video for their song Radio Free Europe, and Finster then went on to paint their next album cover.
29:41R.E.M. was just one of the groups that emerged from the music scene in this college town, Athens.
29:49The B-52s, Pylon, and Indigo Girls also got their start here.
29:54So did actress Kim Basinger and football legend Fran Tarkenton.
30:00Now the fifth largest city in Georgia, Athens grew up around the University of Georgia.
30:06Opened in 1801, it was the nation's first chartered state university.
30:11The school's football team plays its home games here, at Sanford Stadium.
30:16Originally built in the late 1920s by convict labor, it has since expanded from 30,000 to more than 90,000 seats.
30:24From the air, you can see the famous hedges that have encircled the field ever since its opening game.
30:30Georgia Bulldogs versus Sanford Stadium.
30:33It was the Yale football team's first visit to the South.
30:37But after the Bulldogs had battled, Yale went home defeated, 15 to nothing.
30:45It's about 100 miles from Athens to Rome, at least in Georgia.
30:52Here, in front of City Hall, stands a permanent reminder of the bond between old and new.
30:58Here, in front of City Hall, stands a permanent reminder of the bond between old Rome and new Rome.
31:05A bronze replica of Italy's famed sculpture of Romulus and Remus.
31:13During World War II, because of Italy's ties to Nazi Germany, the sculpture was removed and replaced by an American flag.
31:21It was returned to this spot in 1952.
31:25Rome prides itself on its historic Main Street.
31:30Rebuilt after the Civil War, this revitalized neighborhood is one of the best-preserved Victorian city centers in all of the South.
31:45Seeing Georgia from the sky, you quickly come to realize how beautiful, wild, and diverse this state is.
31:55From a timber town turned Bavarian village in Helen, to a global village at Habitat for Humanity in Americus.
32:06But one thing that's long held Georgia together is its railroads.
32:11Since the trains first ran in the 1830s, more than a hundred railways have operated here.
32:17Like the Hook and Eye Line, the Iron Belt Railroad, and the Vidalia Route.
32:29During the Civil War, the railroads provided a critical network for Confederate troops and weapons.
32:36As General Sherman began his fateful march from Atlanta to Savannah, he set his sights on the railways hundreds of miles worth.
32:45The melted, twisted tracks he left behind became known as Sherman's Neckties.
32:52This hearth is all that remains of a home his troops burned, all part of an effort to destroy Southern morale and force a surrender.
33:01I want to make Georgia howl, he said, and he succeeded.
33:05A month into Sherman's march, his troops were nearing Savannah, but they were in desperate need of supplies.
33:12The Ogeechee River could provide a perfect delivery route for offshore Union ships.
33:19But the Ogeechee was under the protection of an earthen-walled Confederate stronghold called Fort McAllister.
33:26During the war, the fort had repelled seven attacks from the sea, but it was virtually helpless against the enemy.
33:33But it was virtually helpless against a strong land attack.
33:38On December 13, 1864, a division of Union soldiers laid siege to the fort.
33:45Just 15 minutes later, they declared victory.
33:51Union ships were now able to rendezvous with Sherman's army and provide them with the supplies they needed to stage their attack on Savannah.
33:59Before Sherman's men even entered the city, the opposing Confederate general turned tail and disappeared.
34:07The next morning, Savannah's mayor offered a formal surrender.
34:14Today, Savannah is a bustling industrial center and the largest port in Georgia.
34:21But that's not what draws tourists here.
34:23They come here from all over the world to experience southern charm, rich cultural history, and, in this case, a spooky connection to the past.
34:35Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery is the title character in author John Berent's best-selling novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, with the cemetery featured heavily in the plot.
34:47The Bird Girl sculpture that graces the book's cover was removed from here shortly after publication and donated to a local museum to keep it safe from tourists.
34:57But other ghostly figures can still be glimpsed between the mournful trees draped in Spanish moss.
35:03Among the noteworthy residents here are songwriter Johnny Mercer, writer Conrad Aiken, and six-year-old Gracie Watson, a Savannah girl who died of pneumonia just before Easter Sunday, 1889.
35:20One New Orleans minister wrote to his wife, Bonaventure Cemetery is a beautiful place to die.
35:26He then traveled straight here and committed suicide.
35:32Many ghost hunters claim that this is the most haunted cemetery in the United States.
35:38If only the spirits could talk, what tales they would tell of 200 dramatic years in Georgia history.
35:57Georgia's 100-mile-long coastline is one of America's great natural treasures, the longest unbroken stretch of wild Atlantic beachfront and marsh on the East Coast, and there's no better way to take in its rugged beauty than from the air.
36:15Thirteen barrier islands, nicknamed the Golden Isles, line the coast, separated from the mainland by deep tidal inlets.
36:25Soaring over these islands is a journey into Georgia's colonial past.
36:31At their northernmost point, a 150-year-old lighthouse guards Coxspur Island.
36:39The coast probably looks much the same as it did when English chaplain John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, first arrived here in 1736 on his way to Savannah.
36:51Long after Wesley sailed away, the island became home to Fort Pulaski, built between 1829 and 1847 to protect the eastern seaboard.
37:06The moat surrounding the fort is between 30 and 48 feet wide, with an average depth of 8 feet.
37:14Today, turtles and alligators make their home just beneath the surface.
37:20When this outpost was built, brick forts were considered the best form of defense in the world, but that would change during the Civil War.
37:29On April 10, 1862, Union troops launched their attack on Fort Pulaski with a brand new technology, the rifled cannon.
37:38Able to fire longer distances with greater accuracy, this weaponry completely dominated the fort in a matter of 30 hours.
37:47The damage is still visible.
37:51Not wanting to expose the garrison to further destruction, Confederate General Charles Olmsted surrendered.
37:58No one would ever build a brick fort again.
38:03None of Georgia's barrier islands has a more fascinating history than this one, a more than 5,000-acre wildlife refuge named for the world's most notorious buccaneer.
38:16This is Blackbeard Island.
38:20Blackbeard was known to plunder merchant ships off the Georgia coast in the early 18th century.
38:26Legend has it, he and his men came to this island to stash their loot and hide out between raids.
38:33Blackbeard's career came to a grisly end in 1718 when he died in a bloody battle in North Carolina.
38:42It's said his headless ghost still walks this island, guarding his buried treasure.
38:53In 1800, the U.S. Navy purchased Blackbeard Island as a source of lumber for shipbuilding.
39:00Then, in 1880, it became a quarantine station to monitor incoming sailors for yellow fever.
39:07A few years earlier, this mosquito-borne disease had reached epidemic proportions, killing a thousand people in Savannah alone.
39:16The island is now a national wildlife refuge, providing safe haven for migratory birds and endangered loggerhead sea turtles.
39:26Some 10 miles away is the most remote and desolate of Georgia's coastal jewels, Little St. Simons Island.
39:35It's lucky to have survived in such pristine condition.
39:40In 1908, New York's Eagle Pencil Company purchased this 10,000-acre island with the intention of harvesting its vast red cedar forests.
39:50But, as fate would have it, the wood here was too damaged by salt and wind for pencil making.
39:57By the time Eagle was ready to call it quits, the company's owner had fallen in love with this place and bought it for himself.
40:06The island remains in his family, undeveloped and accessible only by boat.
40:12To help protect its unspoiled wildlife habitats, only 32 visitors are allowed on Little St. Simons at any one time.
40:23Jekyll Island, on the other hand, is a tourist paradise. Its coasts line with vacation homes.
40:32The island was first developed by a man named William Jekyll.
40:36They were among the charter members of the Jekyll Island Club, described as the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world.
40:47Today, the clubhouse has been renovated to house the Jekyll Island Club.
40:52Jekyll Island Club is the largest clubhouse in the world.
40:56Jekyll Island Club, described as the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world.
41:04Today, the clubhouse has been renovated into a luxurious hotel.
41:09The building is steeped in the grandeur of the Gilded Age, and the grounds are home to a tournament-level croquet green.
41:15The largest jewel in Georgia's coastal necklace is Cumberland Island, known for its pristine maritime forests, lush marshes, and undeveloped beaches.
41:31Spanish explorers first arrived here in 1566, naming the island San Pedro.
41:38Over the next hundred years, they built forts and missions here.
41:41But by the time the English general James Oglethorpe arrived in 1736, the Spaniards were gone.
41:57In 1955, the National Park Service named the island one of the best coastal recreation areas in the country.
42:06But while much of the island's untouched coastline looks like something from another world, lifeless it is not.
42:18Legend has it that wild ponies like these have been here as far back as the 16th century, the legacy of its earliest Spanish settlers.
42:27Look from above, and you can also see a human footprint, or at least the remains of one.
42:46Dungeness Mansion was built by Thomas Carnegie as a winter retreat for his wife and nine children.
42:53In its heyday, this Scottish-style castle was the height of excess, boasting 59 rooms, swimming pools, a golf course, and a staff of 200 servants.
43:06The Carnegies left the island after the Great Depression, and in 1959, a suspicious fire turned the once glorious mansion into rubble.
43:22About 50 miles inland from the Georgia coast, water meets earth in a dramatic dance.
43:38This is the 402,000-acre swampland known as the Okefenokee, a Native American term meaning the land of the trembling earth.
43:48Sure enough, soft peat deposits, some up to 15 feet deep, cover the region.
43:55Jump up and down in some places, and the trees around you shake.
44:02It's the largest intact wetland swamp in North America.
44:07For decades, industry exploited the swamp's resources, plundering its forests for lumber.
44:13But in 1936, the U.S. government stepped in to protect this wondrous place and its wildlife.
44:20Today, the Okefenokee is the epitome of wild Georgia and a celebration of nature's victory over human greed.
44:29From its wild swamps to its highest peaks, down its free-spirited coast, Georgia is a state as rich in natural wonders as it is in its span of history.
44:45From the site of an ancient mystery, to key battlefields of the Civil War, to cities and towns decimated by conflict and economic hard times,
45:00through it all, Georgia has persevered, producing great writers, a president, and one of the greatest civil rights leaders the world has ever known.
45:14It's easy to see why Georgia has earned the title the Empire State of the South.
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