St. Simons Island, GA
On the south end of St. Simons Island, one of Georgia's Golden Isles. Built in 1939, served as Naval Air Station Glynco's satellite during WWII and the early Cold War — the original NAS was famous for blimp operations hunting U-boats off the coast. Class D, single 5,510ft runway 4/22, uncontrolled tower hours. The closest field to Cumberland Island National Seashore (25 miles south) and the wild Carnegie estate ruins at Dungeness. Saltwater approach over the marshes of Glynn — the same marshes Sidney Lanier wrote about in 1878.
A 17-mile barrier island accessible only by boat, preserved as a national seashore in 1972. The Carnegie family owned most of the island from the 1880s until donating it; Dungeness, their 59-room mansion, burned in 1959 and the ruins still stand, slowly being absorbed by the maritime forest. About 150 feral horses roam the island, descendants of stock turned loose by the Carnegies. John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette at the First African Baptist Church here in 1996. From above: white beaches running the eastern shore, salt marshes and live oak hammocks the western side, the chimneys of Dungeness visible in the south.
A 438,000-acre blackwater wilderness straddling the Georgia-Florida border — the headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Marys rivers. The name comes from Hitchiti words meaning "trembling earth"; the swamp's floating peat islands actually do shake underfoot. Tannin from decomposing vegetation stains the water the color of strong tea, and the still surfaces reflect the cypress canopy like a mirror. Population: roughly 12,000 alligators, plus black bears, sandhill cranes, and the largest stand of pond cypress in the world. The swamp burns periodically — major fires in 2007 and 2011 — which keeps it open and vital.
America's first planned city, laid out in 1733 by James Oglethorpe in 24 squares — public greens surrounded by streets, with house lots radiating off each square. 22 of the original squares survive, shaded by 250-year-old live oaks draped in Spanish moss. The district covers 2.5 square miles, the largest National Historic Landmark in the country. Sherman spared Savannah during his March to the Sea in 1864, presenting it to Lincoln as a Christmas gift, which is why so much antebellum architecture survives. Forsyth Park anchors the southern end with its iconic 1858 white fountain. The Savannah River frontage runs cargo ships past the historic cotton warehouses on River Street.
Savannah is where the Eighth Air Force was activated in January 1942 before it shipped to England — and this museum in Pooler, just west of the city, tells the story of the 26,000 Eighth Air Force airmen who died in the bombing campaign over Europe, more dead than the entire U.S. Marine Corps lost in the Pacific. Opened in 1996, its centerpiece is the restoration of the B-17 "City of Savannah." Outside sit a B-47 Stratojet, a MiG-17, and an F-4 Phantom; inside, a recreated bomber mission and the human stories of the young men who flew daylight raids into the most heavily defended airspace in the world.