This 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company map provides amazing detail of Isle of Hope’s Bluff area from just over a hundred years ago. Beginning in 1867, Sanborn created maps for thousands of cities across the country to assist with property insurance. The maps included not only typical map features, such as streets and property boundaries, but also included the size, shape, and site of all structures, both residential and commercial. Sanborn had created earlier maps for Savannah in 1884, 1888, and 1898. The 1916 Savannah map was the first Sanborn map to include Isle of Hope.
This map focuses on the area in the center of the island along the Skidaway River, which at that time was dominated by the businesses and buildings of Alexander Barbee, the Terrapin King. Barbee had been operating at Isle of Hope now for over twenty years with a series of partners, first with George Willett, then with J.H. Bandy, and finally with his son, Willie. The business had grown from a restaurant in the train depot to the sprawling operations shown on this map. A new and improved pavilion and restaurant dominated the waterfront and included a bathhouse, a boathouse, and a pool. (This two-dimensional map does not show the diving tower, popular with island children.) Across the street was Barbee’s Diamond-Back Terrapin Farm with tin-covered sheds housing eighteen terrapin crawls for thousands of turtles. Nearby was an ostrich pen, home to Marguerite the ostrich and her ostrich friends, an aviary with a pool for birds, and a zoo, which at various times had a sloth, a tiger, a monkey, an anteater, wildcats, and assorted snakes.
The map shows our Lady of Good Hope Chapel and the Isle of Hope Methodist Church. An African American church is identified on Parkersburg Road, near the current site of the Isle of Hope School. The school identified in the map is across Parkersburg Road. There is no St. Thomas Episcopal Church, which explains why there is not yet a St. Thomas Episcopal Avenue. Many other streets look familiar and have familiar names, but some have been renamed over the years. Bluff Drive is named River Road and Rosenbrook Avenue is Depot Lane. Many Bluff residences shown on the map are still standing, including Liberty Hall at 25 Bluff Drive, (marked by no. 223), the cottages at 27, 29, 31, and 33 Bluff Drive, (nos. 229-232), and 35 Bluff Drive (no. 233).