Savannah, from its founding up to the present

1. The Beginning
General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of
Georgia in 1733, the last of the thirteen
original British colonies.

2. In 1734, Peter Gordon, Oglethorpe’s surveyor, drew a map of
Savannah. It was laid out in a grid which would ultimately
contain 24 squares, of which 22 exist today.

3. Oglethorpe and others had the fanciful notion that
they could produce silk spun by silkworms in
Mulberry trees.

4. Needless to say, this did not work and what began as
a slave-free colony became slave-owning in 1750 and
embarked on rice production. Rice remained a
commercial crop in coastal Georgia until the
beginning of the 20th
century.

5. The Battle of Savannah was fought On October 9, 1779 for control
of the city. There were roughly 2,500 British defenders who wanted
to keep Savannah within the clutches of the crown. They faced down
a determined Allied force of 5,500 French and American troops.
Soldiers from Haiti, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, and
Poland took part in the fighting. When the smoke cleared the city
remained in British hands.

6. Today, Battlefield Park, just off MLK Blvd., is a
memorial to the hundreds who fought and died for
freedom in 1779. Battlefield Park commemorates the
second bloodiest battle of the war, and marks where
approximately 800 troops died or were wounded.

7. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin on Mulberry Grove
plantation just up-river from Savannah. Cotton had not been a
staple crop because it required so much man power to pull the
seeds from the harvested bolls.

8. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton production soared.
Cotton was a crop that could be stored for long periods and shipped
long distances, unlike most agricultural products. It became the
U.S.'s chief export, representing over half the value of U.S. exports
from 1820 to 1860.
Coastal Georgia was among the leading producers of Sea Island
cotton prior to 1861.
The 19th
Century

9. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator James H.
Hammond (SC) declaimed on March 4, 1858:
“You dare not make war upon cotton! No power on
earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is king.”

10. With the firing on Ft. Sumter in Charleston on April 12,
1861, the north and South would enter upon four years of
bloody slaughter. Approximately one in four soldiers that
went to war never returned home.

11. Sherman spared Savannah in 1864 on his march from Atlanta to
the sea. He established his headquarters in the Green-Meldrim
House, today the parish house of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Three days before Christmas, General Sherman telegraphed to
Abraham Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the
city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns & plenty of ammunition &
also about 25,000 bales of cotton."

12. Well, long story short: The Civil War
or the War of Northern Aggression or
the War Between the States—take your
pick—ended the reign of King Cotton.
With cheaper cotton available overseas
and no more slaves to pick it, the
South was ruined financially and
economically.

13. From about 1870 and continuing into the 20th
century, coastal
Georgia experienced an economic boom with the production of naval
stores which included lumber, railroad ties, rosin, and turpentine.
Here, laborers on a Savannah dock prepare barrels of rosin for
shipment, circa 1895.
From the 1890s until 1945, the ports at Savannah and Brunswick
shipped out most of the world's supply of naval stores.

14. The 20th
Century
Founded in 1881, the Union Bag and Paper Company from
Pennsylvania built a major mill in Savannah in the late 20s. It
eased the blow of the Great Depression.
The Camp Manufacturing Company was founded in 1887 by three
local Camp brothers from Franklin, Virginia. It was a timber and
sawmill business. After months of negotiations, a deal was struck.
On 13 July 1956 the merger was completed and the Union Bag-
Camp Paper company was born.

15. Today, the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) is Savannah’s
biggest industry and employer. In 2011, the port had the
highest volume of all US ports and was fourth in container
shipments.

16. Four new ship-to-shore cranes arrived at GPA’s Garden City
Terminal in early June 2013. The cranes can reach across vessels
22 containers wide and lift cargo weighing up to 65 long tons to
a height of 136 feet above the dock.

17. Experience Savannah
The Davenport House is located at 324 E.
State St. It is one of Savannah’s premier
house museums.

18. Had it not been for a determined group of Savannah women in
1955, the Davenport House might not have survived. Savannah’s
City Market had recently been torn down and the Davenport House
was slated for demolition. The women bought the house and formed
the Historic Savannah Foundation. We owe them much for the
preservation efforts that followed and for the City you see today.

19. Other notable house
museums include the
Andrew Low House on
Lafayette Square and…
…the Owens Thomas
House on Oglethorpe
Square.

20. The house above is the birth place of Juliette Gordon Low
who founded the Girl Scouts in Savannah in 1912 in the
Andrew Low House after she had married. It is now the
Girl Scouts’ Savannah headquarters and sits on the
corner of Oglethorpe Ave. and Bull St.

21. Savannah has been the
setting for a number of
movies.
1989
2000
1997
2010
1994

22. Love it or hate it but every March 17th
Savannah puts on the
second largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in America. Hundreds of
thousands of determined revelers descend upon the City and a
few may even catch the Budweiser Clydesdales strutting along
the parade route.

23. River Street, which parallels the Savannah River,
is a tourist Mecca. Here it is swollen with a recent
St. Pat’s crowd.

24. Forsyth Park is the Historic District’s largest open, green space.
You’ll find the Confederate Monument, shady walkways, a
glorious fountain dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day, a
restaurant, play areas for kids, a covered stage for live
entertainment, spacious playing fields and tennis courts.

25. A block north of Forsyth is the Mercer House on Monterey
Square where the antiques dealer and bon vivant Jim
Williams lived for many years. It was the scene of a murder
in 1981 which John Berendt used as the basis for his best
seller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Williams,
accused of the murder, went to trial four times but was
finally acquitted.
In Savannah it is simply referred to as “The Book.”

26. Just two blocks north of the Mercer House on Bull St. is the
Savannah College of Art and Design’s Admission Welcome Center.
SCAD was started in 1979 with 71 students and now has an
international enrollment of nearly 10,000.
The Welcome Center was the former Savannah Volunteer Guard
Armory.

27. Travelling further north on Bull St. you will arrive at
Broughton St., the heart of the Historic District’s
retail and restaurant area. Broughton St. has come a
long way in the last two decades and business booms
day and night all week long.

28. Tourism is Savannah’s biggest
business after the Georgia Ports. It is
definitely a walking city and Bull St.,
as you have probably guessed, is a
major route, running north from
Forsyth Park to Bay St.
There are many tour companies (and
individual guides as well) to help you
around the Historic District. From
carriages, to trolleys, to Pedi cabs—
even by Segway— or simply by foot
with an individual guide or a map in
hand, you will have a great time in
America’s largest Historic Landmark
District.
If you desire expert, individual
attention, we recommend Victorian
Lady Tours at 912 232-7708.
Ardis
Wood

29. There is much to see outside Savannah. Here are two
unique sites barely 15 minutes from Savannah’s
Historic District.
White, frame houses perch on the
Isle of Hope’s Bluff Drive facing
the Intracoastal Waterway.
And about a mile to the west is
the grand, oak covered allee of
Wormsloe plantation.

30. Tybee Island is about 25 minutes east of Savannah on the
Atlantic Ocean. It is an amusing mixture of the old and the new.
Traditional frame beach houses dot the island while new
motel/hotels have proliferated mostly on the north end of Butler
Ave. The “Redneck Riviera” is neither as crass or grand as its
oxymoronic title implies. It falls somewhere in the middle:
comfortable, relaxed, living on its own time.

31. Enjoy!