Two hundred years after its founding, St. Simons Island’s Fort Frederica was once again a hub of activity in the summer of 1936. A three-day pageant, held on July 2, 3, and 4, commemorated the fort’s bicentennial with such spectacle that the events received their own full-page feature in the “rotogravure” section of the Atlanta Journal. This section, unique to the newspaper’s Sunday edition, featured photographs of the pageant taken throughout the three-day program. Costumed local residents portrayed Oglethorpe, the Wesley brothers, Nancy Hart, British soldiers, and dozens of others. The celebration also featured a court of honor with a crowned queen, Freda Copeland, and reenactments of historic events. The Journal helpfully included a map of the car route from Atlanta to St. Simons, furnished by a member of the Atlanta Motor Club, which took drivers through Macon, Baxley, Waycross, and Brunswick en route to Fort Frederica.
Coastal Georgia Historical Society
A piece of the July 5, 1936 rotogravure section of the Atlanta Journal, featuring photographs from Fort Frederica's bicentennial celebration.
This was a special year for Fort Frederica—not only was 1936 the bicentennial year of the fort’s founding, but on May 26, the site officially became a national monument. The original site covered only eighty acres. Today’s Fort Frederica National Monument occupies 305 acres. In 1936, however, even the original acreage was cause for much celebration. Although the Atlanta Journal highlighted tourist interest in the new Fort Frederica National Monument and the bicentennial, it was locals—and especially a few dedicated women—who were the driving force behind the festival.
Coastal Georgia Historical Society
Historian Margaret Davis Cate at Fort Frederica
In the week before the bicentennial, the Brunswick Pilot newspaper touted the upcoming historical pageant as thoroughly accurate and well-documented, with scenes portraying historical events as distant as 370 years before. Locals, it said, should thank Margaret Davis Cate and Mary Ross, two well-known Coastal Georgia historians who had undertaken much research to ensure the pageant’s accuracy. The Pilot also suggested that Coastal Georgia had a historical advantage over many other areas of the country, having long “been dominated by a class of people who kept voluminous written records of their movements and observations.”
Not only could the community look forward to the pageant, the Brunswick Pilot promised, but also the sight of a “monster parade of gaudy floats,” the U.S Marine Band from Parris Island, and Glynn Academy’s new drum and bugle corps. All would make their way through the streets of Brunswick and across the causeway, where the parade would conclude at Fort Frederica National Monument itself.
This month’s featured images from the Coastal Georgia Historical Society are a piece of the July 5, 1936 rotogravure section of the Atlanta Journal, featuring photographs from the bicentennial, and a photograph of historian Margaret Davis Cate at Fort Frederica.
The Coastal Georgia Historical Society presents this article and images from our archives as part of our mission “to connect people to Coastal Georgia’s dynamic history.” The Society operates the iconic St. Simons Lighthouse Museum and the World War II Home Front Museum, housed in the Historic Coast Guard Station at East Beach. To learn more about the Society, its museums, diverse programs, and membership, please visit coastalgeorgiahistory.org.
