Tybee Island
Georgia's barrier-island beach town, 18 miles east of Savannah.
- Population
- 3,114 (2020 census)
- From Savannah
- 18 miles east
- The name
- Likely a Euchee word for “salt”
- Tides
- Two highs, two lows a day
Then
- Before 1520
Native peoples camp and hunt on Georgia's coastal islands for thousands of years. The Euchee likely live on Tybee before the Spanish arrive, and the island's name likely comes from their word for salt.
- 1736
The first Tybee lighthouse, 90 feet tall, is built. Erosion and storms force rebuilds, and the base of the 1773 tower still forms the bottom 60 feet of today's light.
- 1847
Fort Pulaski, on nearby Cockspur Island, is finished after 18 years of work. A young Robert E. Lee helped direct its construction.
- 1862
On April 10–11, Union batteries on Tybee's north shore breach Fort Pulaski's walls with new rifled cannon in about 30 hours, proving brick forts obsolete.
- 1867
The top 94 feet of the lighthouse are added, giving it the shape it has today.
- 1887
The Central of Georgia Railway opens a line from downtown Savannah, and Tybee becomes a beach getaway.
- 1898–1947
Fort Screven, named for Revolutionary War general James Screven, serves as an Army post until it is decommissioned.
- 1958
On February 5, an Air Force B-47 jettisons a hydrogen bomb off Tybee after a midair collision. It is never recovered; the Air Force says it lacks a nuclear capsule.
Now
Tybee is Savannah's beach: a small island town with a sandy ocean shore on its east side, the Tybee Pier and Pavilion (opened in 1996, replacing a pavilion that burned in 1967) and the lighthouse.
The old Fort Screven area, with its batteries and the 1930 Tybee Post Theater, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Fort Pulaski National Monument sits just across the water on Cockspur Island.
On the water
From NOAA's predictions for Tybee Creek entrance over the next 365 days. Heights are in feet above mean lower low water (MLLW).
- Pattern
- Two highs and two lows a day, close in size
- Typical daily range
- 7.1 ft
- Biggest swing
- 10.0 ft on Jan 23
- Smallest swing
- 4.5 ft on Mar 31
- Highest high
- 8.8 ft, Oct 27 at 9:06 AM
- Lowest low
- −1.8 ft, Jan 23 at 2:27 AM