In the spring of 1936, Green Cove Springs was buzzing with excitement. Amelia Earhart, already a national icon for her daring, epic flights, had made a special stop in town to participate in a special golf event at the Magnolia Point Golf Course, the ‘Old Course’, largely what’s now ‘Governor’s Landing’, on the western shore of the St. Johns River. Her visit was a thrilling spectacle, the kind of story that would linger for decades in that small Florida town, and echo though the hallowed halls of women’s professional golf. She was invited by that other legend of the day, a young Babe Didrikson, Olympic Gold Medalist and soon enough epic golfer. The event on the Old Course was special in that it served the dual purposes of funding local charities, and promoting Babe’s early efforts at helping found the LPGA. While here, the pair were simply, ‘The Gals’.
The excitement began long before she even set foot on the course. Earhart had arrived in her sleek Lockheed 10-E Electra, cutting an impressive figure as she swooped in low over the River, the big silver twin gleaming in the afternoon sun. Locals gathered by the riverside and on the fairways to watch her soar and dip, rock her wings. Then, to their amazement, she began tossing small white bundles from the plane. Magnolia blossoms floated down in her wake, as if she were scattering pieces of the sky itself, her tribute to the area’s namesake. She caused a stir by making a mock approach on one of the fairways, then pulled up to land instead at a small crop-duster’s runway alongside the St. Johns just south of town.
The town and Magnolia Point pulled out all the stops for this storied visitor, and Amelia responded in kind. First, a special golf cart was commissioned and present to the flyer, fabricated locally and christened ‘Betty Boop’ by the mayor. The next day, Amelia unveiled a line of women’s golf accessories, ball markers included, and a new signature visor, which remains on display in the Magnolia Museum.
But in the years since, alongside these vingettes, a new rumor had taken root in Green Cove, one that seemed to grow more fantastical with each telling. They said Earhart had dropped something else that day, something mysterious, valuable, and lost in the grasses and marshy patches of the Old Course.
Eighty-eight years later, a young golfer was practicing her shots from the rough along the River, okay, maybe a little too rough, on that small patch of the Old Course, preserved since Earhart’s visit. She was testing the bounce of her club when a glint in the grass caught her eye, something metallic and unexpected. Kneeling down, she brushed aside the dense growth of maidencane and sawgrass, her fingers closing around a small, tarnished coin. Turning it over, she noticed the faint but unmistakable monogram: ‘AEM’. Could it be?
Breathless, she examined the piece more closely. It was engraved with delicate magnolia blossoms, worn but still visible, and a small emblem on the back that matched the Electra logo Amelia had been known to use on her personal belongings. Could it really be? Had Earhart, known for her love of leaving little mementos and mysteries, dropped this ball-marker on purpose, her last playful gift to the world before her fateful disappearance the following year?
Driven by equal parts curiosity and reverence, the young woman tucked the treasure into her pocket and began stepping lightly through the grasses and tracing the old course’s contours. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was walking in Earhart’s footsteps, following a trail of whispers and mystery that led all the way back nearly 100 years. Amelia had flown into Green Cove Springs on a whim, leaving a piece of herself behind—a mystery only the curious or the bold might someday uncover. Maybe some secrets were meant to be found only by those willing to wander into the unknown.
She found herself at a desk at the Historical Society, poring over the accounts of Amelia’s visit, turning the ball marker over in the pocket of her shots. She read with particular interest, the accounts of the last day when the flier addressed an adoring crowd at the airstrip, gushed effusively about the hospitality of the community, the love she felt for golf, and Green Cove Springs. How she then looked to the heavens, called it ‘a fairway sky”, and disappeared behind the fuselage door. The Lockheed’s starters spun up, the engines spit, coughed and growled to life in protest, a deafening thunder that ‘rattled the bones’, as one observed. She taxied to the far end of the runway, roared past her well-wishers, then up and away towards the north Florida horizon. And a history both hers and ours.