Fort George Island presents a cross-section of Florida history. Timucuan Indians inhabited the island when French explorer Jean Ribault landed nearby in 1562, and before 1600 a Spanish mission was established there to serve the Timucuans. Known to the Spanish as San Juan, the island was renamed St. George by Georgia Governor James Oglethorpe, who built Fort George there in the 1730's during a British invasion of Spanish Florida. During the Second Spanish Period from 1783 to 1821, the island was owned in succession by Don Juan McQueen, John Houstoun McIntosh, and Zephaniah Kingsley, and two plantation houses and the ruins of slave dwellings from that period remain and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Shortly after the Civil War, John F. Rollins of New Hampshire acquired the island, remodeled the Kingsley Plantation main house as his Florida residence, the Homestead, and as postmaster moved the area's post office to nearby Batten Island to take advantage of river traffic on the St. Johns. Although reachable only by boat, the island became a popular tourist resort during the 1880's, gained new year-round residents, and saw the construction in 1881 of St. George's Episcopal church as a sign of population growth. By about 1890, however, the extension of the railroad along Florida's east coast, combined with a yellow fever epidemic and a destructive fire, ended the tourist era on the island. During Florida's boom of the 1920's, the island experienced new prosperity as two fashionable clubs opened and Hecksher Drive, built by New York millionaire August Hecksher, brought the automobile there. After World War II, part of Fort George Island became a state park, and tourists were once again drawn to this historic island.
