// ossabaw island //
FREEDOM
What the Island Refused to Become
In 1978, Eleanor Torrey West chose to sell Ossabaw to the State of Georgia rather than accept any of the resort development offers that had been made. The island was conveyed as a Heritage Preserve — protected by statute from resort development, commercial exploitation, and the bridge that would have opened it to casual use.
The island's freedom comes from what it refused to become. No golf courses. No hotel. No causeway bringing weekend traffic from Savannah. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources manages access. The Ossabaw Island Foundation coordinates educational and cultural programs. The general public must apply to visit.
This is not exclusion. It is conservation in its most literal meaning: the act of keeping something. The island was kept. 26,000 acres of Georgia barrier island, the third largest off the coast, preserved in the condition it was when Eleanor West made her decision.
These restrictions are not limitations. They are the legal form of a philosophical position: some places are worth protecting completely.