Oatland Island Wildlife Center

Originally part of a cotton plantation, the island once held a retirement center for railroad workers and a hospital and laboratory for the U.S. Public Health Service.

[3] John's wife, Anne Smith,[4] and their respective families continued to live on and visit the island, and cotton and sugar cane were both planted with varying degrees of success.

The finished brick building was two stories high, containing 62 bedrooms, 36 bathrooms, communal living and dining spaces, and a medical department with surgical capabilities.

[14] February 1943, an application was approved by Mayor Thomas Gamble to convert the home to a federal venereal disease detention facility run by the U.S. Public Health Service.

[15] The building underwent construction to retrofit and increase the size to accommodate 200 patients, many of them prostitutes,[14][16] from Georgia and the bordering states of Florida and South Carolina.

[25] A local teacher and administrator, Tony Cope, along with Savannah school board members lobbied for the surplus property to be turned into an environmental education center, winning the bid with an agreement that the government would maintain interest in the property cooperatively with the public school system for a period of 30 years to pilot the proposed education program.

[30][31] Two 1800's homestead cabins were donated and reconstructed on the property, as Cope's vision included the recreation of a period correct Georgia heritage farm.

[34] The Oatland Island Wildlife Center has a two-mile trail loop[35] which takes 20,000 visitors[36] and an additional 20,000 field trip students annually by the animal exhibitions, heritage home site, maritime forest, and wetlands.

An important environmental science component of the Savannah Chatham County Public Schools, students and visitors are exposed to local ecology and indigenous animals.