The Beginning

General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, the last of the

thirteen original British colonies.

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.

Oglethorpe and others had the fanciful notion that they could produce silk spun by

silkworms in Mulberry trees.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.”

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Experience Savannah

The Davenport House is located at 324 E. State St. It is one of Savannah’s

premier house museums.

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.

Other notable house museums include the Andrew Low House on

Lafayette Square and…

…the Owens Thomas House on Oglethorpe

Square.

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.

Savannah has been the setting for a

number of movies.

1989

2000

1997

2010

1994

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.

River Street, which parallels the Savannah River, is a tourist Mecca. Here it is swollen with

a recent St. Pat’s crowd.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Enjoy!