The development of Tybee Island as a seaside resort began in 1873, when the Tybee Improvement Company acquired most of the island for subdivision. The first hotel, Ocean House, was completed in 1876 (destroyed 1893). Initially serviced by steamboat, Tybee Island was linked to Savannah by railroad in 1887, and consolidated with the Central of Georgia Railroad in 1890. The small depot building (1888) at the Savannah end of this line now stands at the entrance to Fort Jackson (15.2). By the close of the nineteenth century, the island was an established regional resort, boasting an upscale grand hotel, several smaller hostelries and social clubs, and a number of summer cottages. The automobile road to Tybee was completed in 1923 and soon eclipsed the railroad line, which closed in 1933. With automobile access and the termination of rail service the island gradually evolved from a seasonal resort destination to a local beach town, renamed Savannah Beach from the 1950s to the 1970s, with a growing year-round population.
Hurricanes, fires, and unfettered development have all but obliterated the late Victorian and early-twentieth-century commercial resort architecture that shaped the island’s urban fabric, but vestiges of it remain. The core of the resort extended from Butler Avenue to the beach between 14th and 18th streets. The railroad traversed what is now Butler Avenue and its primary stop fronted Hotel Tybee, the island’s grand hotel, whose grounds occupied the entire block between 14th and 15th streets. The hotel of 1891 burned in 1909 and was replaced by a larger Mediterranean Revival building in 1911. This in turn was demolished in 1961, save for the diagonally oriented north wing which was converted into one of the several nondescript motel buildings that now occupy the site. Smaller hotels, restaurants, pavilions, and bathhouses were located near Hotel Tybee, and a cluster of boarding houses was located between Tybrisa (16th) and 18th streets.
Summer cottages from the resort era were constructed on large building lots and concentrated in two areas (designated historic districts in 1999): the Strand Historic District from Butler Avenue to the beach, between 12th and 14th streets, and the Back River Historic District along Chatham Avenue fronting the river. Both locations were relatively close to the social resources of the resort core. Today, these cottages are not easily viewed from public land due to lot subdivision, building infill, and landscaping. Their forms generally follow regional traditions for coastal cottages based in part on the Creole architecture of the Gulf Coast: wood-framed buildings sheathed in clapboard, raised on piers, with recessed, wraparound porches, and usually employing high-pitched, hipped roofs that extend out over the porches and have exposed rafter tails.
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