In 1902, a three-year-old girl arrived on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, entering a world of maritime forest, beaches, marshes and sprawling Carnegie family estates. Her name was Lucy Carnegie Ricketson Ferguson. She would remain closely tied to the island for the rest of her life, eventually becoming one of the family members most determined to prevent its transformation into a developed resort. When developers began buying large tracts in the late 1960s, Ferguson and her family faced a choice: allow Cumberland to follow the path of other rapidly developing coastal islands or help preserve the landscape they had known for generations.
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