Sapelo Island Georgia

Sapelo Island Ferry

Sapelo Island Beaches.

Sapelo Island Lighthouse

Visit Sapelo Island

Enjoy the untamed beauty of Sapelo Island amazing beaches, marshes and the grandeur of Reynolds Mansion. Step back in time and take a ferry ride to Sapelo island for memories that last a lifetime.

Sapelo Island is a state-protected island (barrier island) located in McIntosh County, Georgia. The island is only accessible by airplane or boat, with the primary ferry coming from the Sapelo Island Visitors Center in McIntosh County, Georgia, a seven-mile twenty-minute trip.

Sapelo Island is speculated to be the site of San Miguel de Gualdape, the short-lived (1526–27) first European settlement in the present day United States and if true, it would also be the first place in the present-day U.S. that a Catholicmass was celebrated. During the 17th century Sapelo Island was part of the Guale missionary province of Spanish Florida. After 1680, several missions were merged and relocated to the island under the mission Santa Catalina de Guale.

Tabby ruins of Spalding’s 1809 sugar mill In the early 19th century Thomas Spalding, a future Georgia Senator and U.S. Representative, bought the island and developed it into a plantation, selling live oak for shipbuilding, introducing irrigation ditches, and cultivating Sea Island Cotton, corn, and sugar cane.

Wikipedia