The historic district preserves the structures and grounds of the Jekyll Island Club, once the most exclusive private club in the world. The Jekyll Island Club was formed in the 1880s by a group of America's most wealthy and powerful individuals. Among the original founders of the club were J.P. Morgan, Marshall Field, Joseph Pulitzer and William K. Vanderbilt.
For decades, the Jekyll Island Club was one of the focal points in the social lives of America's rich and famous. It was from here that the president of AT&T placed the first international telephone call and it was on Jekyll Island that a group of the nation's top financial leaders crafted the outline of what would eventually become the Federal Reserve.
The turbulent years of the first half of the 20th century, however, spelled an end to the Jekyll Island Club. The World Wars, Great Depression and the dramatic progress realized in means of transportation and communication made the beautiful isolation of the island on the Georgia coast a thing of the past for America's elite. The State of Georgia purchased the entire island during the late 1940s for less than one million dollars.