abandoned during the American Civil War when citizens were ordered to evacuate. The city, like many others in the South, suffered from post-war depression. After one of the nation's largest lumber mills began operation on nearby St. Simons Island, economic prosperity returned. Rail lines were constructed from Brunswick to inland Georgia, which stimulated a sawmill boom, said to average one mill every two miles, along with the new industrial corridor. In his book The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia, 1860–1910 author Mark V. Wetherington states that from Eastman, former Quartermaster General Ira R. Foster "shipped lumber to Brunswick, where it was loaded onto timber schooners and transported to international markets like Liverpool, Rio de Janeiro, and Havana." Unlike many other southern cities during the Reconstruction period, Brunswick experienced an economic boom. In 1878, poet and native Georgian Sidney Lanier, who sought relief from tuberculosis in Brunswick's climate, wrote "The Marshes of Glynn", a poem based on the salt marshes that span Glynn County. The December 1888 issue of Harper's Weekly predicted that "Brunswick by the Sea" was destined to become the "winter Newport of America." Jekyll Island had become a resort destination for some of the era's most influential families (most notably Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Pulitzers, and Goodyears) who arrived by train or yacht. A yellow fever epidemic began in 1893, which heralded a decade of hardships for the city; it was flooded in 1893 when a modern-day Category 3 hurricane (today known as the Sea Islands Hurricane) paralleled the coast of Georgia before hitting South Carolina. The storm left the city under of water. A Category 4 hurricane hit Cumberland Island just south of Brunswick in October 1898, which caused a storm surge in the city. As a result, 179 were killed. Construction of an electric streetcar line began in 1909 and was completed in 1911. Tracks were located in the center of several city streets. In July 1924, the F.J. Torras Causeway, the roadway between Brunswick and St. Simons Island, was completed, and passenger boat service from Brunswick to St. Simons Island was terminated. By 1926, the electric streetcar line in Brunswick was discontinued; the decline of the streetcar systems coincided with the rise of the automobile. In World War II, Brunswick served as a strategic military location. German U-boats threatened the coast of the southern United States, and blimps became a common sight as they patrolled the