In 1978, Eleanor “Sandy” West and her family sold Georgia’s 26,000-acre Ossabaw Island to the state for half its appraised value while retaining the right to use the family home for the rest of her life; she lived on the island until 2016, died at 108 in 2021, and the preservation agreement still prohibits a bridge or causeway to the mainland.

A Georgia family's radical act of conservation—donating an island for half its worth, then ensuring it could never be developed by forbidding the one thing that would make it valuable: access. The post In 1978, Eleanor “Sandy” West and her family sold Georgia’s 26,000-acre Ossabaw Island to the state for half its appraised value while retaining the right to use the family home for the rest of her life; she lived on the island until 2016, died at 108 in 2021, and the preservation agreement still prohibits a bridge or causeway to the mainland. appeared first on Space Daily .
2026-08-31 23:30:00