In 1901, the Savannah Morning News commissioned civil engineer Percy Sugden to prepare a map of Chatham County. The purpose of the map was to spotlight the many advantages Chatham County presented to prospective business owners, such as its large port and waterways, its extensive railroad system and terminals, and its many roadways and streetcar circuits. The entire Chatham County map was published with an accompanying article in a two page spread in the April 4,1901 edition of the Savannah Morning News.
The map above is a portion of that larger Chatham County map and focuses on Isle of Hope’s connections to downtown Savannah. Two streetcar lines are shown running from Savannah to Isle of Hope. The Savannah, Thunderbolt, and Isle of Hope Electrical Railway and The City and Suburban Electrical Railway each ran separate rail lines from midtown Savannah out to the Sandfly streetcar station. Once at Sandfly, a single rail line ran from the Sandfly streetcar station across the marsh and to the depot near the bluff at Isle of Hope.
Major roads are shown, some labelled and some not. The Skidaway Shell Road and the new LaRoche Avenue, Isle of Hope’s two connectors to Savannah, are identified. Parkersburg Road and Bluff Drive on Isle of Hope are shown with the locations of houses, but these roads are not identified. Grimball Point and Grimball Creek are specifically identified. Grimball Point Road, shown but not identified, leads from the center of Isle of Hope out to Grimball Creek, where five houses are shown grouped on the shoreline of the creek.