Savannah, Georgia

Lore & Background

On February 12, 1733, General James Oglethorpe and settlers from the ship Anne landed at Yamacraw Bluff and were greeted by Tomochichi, the Yamacraws, and Indian traders John and Mary Musgrove. Mary Musgrove often served as an interpreter. The city of Savannah and the colony of Georgia were founded on that date. By the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Savannah had become the southernmost commercial port in the Thirteen Colonies. British troops took the city in 1778, and the following year, a combined force of American and French soldiers, including Haitians, failed to rout the British at the Siege of Savannah. The British did not leave the city until July 1782. In December 1804 the state legislature declared Milledgeville the new capital of Georgia. Savannah, a prosperous seaport throughout the nineteenth century, was the Confederacy's sixth most populous city and the prime objective of Major General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea. On December 21, 1864, local authorities negotiated a peaceful surrender to save Savannah from destruction, and Union troops marched into the city at dawn.

Reader's Guide

Savannah attracts millions of visitors each year to its cobblestone streets, parks, and notable historic buildings. These include the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA), the Georgia Historical Society (the oldest continually operating historical society in the South), the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (one of the South's first public museums), the First African Baptist Church (one of the oldest African-American Baptist congregations in the United States), Temple Mickve Israel (the third-oldest synagogue in the U.S.), and the Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex (now a museum and visitor center). Savannah's downtown area, which includes the Savannah Historic District, its 22 parklike squares, and the Savannah Victorian Historic District, is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the U.S., designated by the federal government in 1966. Downtown Savannah largely retains the founder James Oglethorpe's original town plan, a design known as the Oglethorpe Plan. During the 1996 Summer Olympics hosted by Atlanta, Savannah held sailing competitions in the nearby Wassaw Sound.

Did You Know?

• Savannah was named after the Savannah River, which probably derives from variant names for the Shawnee, a Native American people.
• The city is prone to flooding due to abundant rainfall, an elevation just above sea level, and the shape of the coastline.
• Savannah's climate is humid subtropical, with rare snowfall and extreme temperatures ranging from 105 °F to 3 °F.
• The first meteorological observations in Savannah probably occurred at Oglethorpe Barracks circa 1827.

Founding & Colonial Roots

Savannah's story begins on February 12, 1733, when General James Oglethorpe and settlers from the ship Anne landed at Yamacraw Bluff, greeted by Tomochichi, the Yamacraw people, and Indian traders John and Mary Musgrove, with Mary often serving as interpreter. That single landing established both the city and the colony of Georgia, making Savannah the oldest city in the state. By 1751 it had become the capital of a Royal Colony, a role it kept until the legislature relocated the state capital to Milledgeville in 1804. The city's name carries layered origins: the leading theory traces it to the Shawnee, whose word Ša·wano·ki meant 'southerners' and who had displaced the Westo at the river's fall line near present-day Augusta. Other explanations link it to the English 'savanna,' borrowed through Spanish from the Taino word for tropical grassland, or to Algonquian terms for 'muddy water.' Whatever the true root, Oglethorpe's original grid of streets and twenty-two parklike squares still defines the downtown layout, a design so enduring that it anchors one of the nation's largest National Historic Landmark Districts, federally designated in 1966.

Wars That Shaped the City

Savannah's strategic position on the river made it a prize in every major conflict that touched the American South. By the time the Revolutionary War erupted, it had grown into the southernmost commercial port among the Thirteen Colonies. British forces seized the city in 1778, and the following year a combined American, French, and Haitian army attempted to dislodge them in the Siege of Savannah, only to suffer defeat. The British garrison would not withdraw until July 1782. Nearly a century later, Savannah's prosperity as a nineteenth-century seaport made it the Confederacy's sixth-largest city and the ultimate target of Major General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea. On December 21, 1864, local officials arranged a peaceful handover to keep the city from being destroyed, and Union soldiers entered at first light. The contrast between those two occupations—British troops holding a colonial port for four years and Sherman's army arriving to a negotiated surrender—captures how much the city's military significance evolved across the long arc of American history, from colonial frontier to industrial Atlantic seaport.

A Living Museum of the South

Millions of visitors walk Savannah's cobblestone streets each year, drawn by a concentration of historic buildings that few American cities can match. The downtown area, encompassing the Savannah Historic District, its twenty-two parklike squares, and the Savannah Victorian Historic District, was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1966 and ranks among the largest in the country. Within that boundary sit landmarks of extraordinary breadth: the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, who would go on to found the Girl Scouts of the USA; the Georgia Historical Society, the oldest continually operating historical society in the South; the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the region's earliest public museums; the First African Baptist Church, among the oldest African-American Baptist congregations in the nation; and Temple Mickve Israel, the third-oldest synagogue in the United States. The Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex, the oldest standing antebellum rail facility in the country, now serves as a museum and visitor center. Together these sites make Savannah less a single historic landmark than a layered, walkable archive of Southern life.

River, Rain, and the Rhythm of the Coast

Savannah sits roughly twenty miles upriver from the Atlantic, perched on the Savannah River with the Ogeechee River marking its southern boundary sixteen miles south of downtown. The city spans 108.7 square miles, of which just over five percent is water, and it serves as the primary port on the Savannah River and the largest port in Georgia, sitting near the U.S. Intracoastal Waterway. Its climate is humid subtropical, bringing long, almost tropical summers with frequent brief thunderstorms and short, mild winters in which January's average high hovers near sixty-one degrees. Snow is rare, and while roughly twenty-one days per year see lows below freezing, some seasons bring fewer than ten such nights; the January 1985 Arctic outbreak drove the mercury to a record three degrees. The city's low elevation, heavy rainfall, and open coastline make it vulnerable to flooding and hurricane surge; five canals and a network of pumping stations work to mitigate flash flooding. Half of Savannah's annual precipitation falls between June and September, and summer dewpoints routinely sit in the high sixties to low seventies, giving the air a persistent, heavy warmth that defines the Deep South experience.

Gallery