The History of Savannah, Georgia: Exploring the Savannah Historic District
Some cities preserve their history inside museums.
Savannah surrounds you with it.
Walk through the Savannah Historic District and nearly three centuries of American history appear block by block.
Brick streets disappear beneath live oaks.
Church steeples rise above the tree canopy.
Iron balconies cling to nineteenth-century buildings.
Historic homes face green public squares that were incorporated into the city's design almost 300 years ago.
And behind all of that beauty is a much more complicated story involving colonization, war, slavery, commerce, emancipation, preservation and generations of Savannah residents who shaped the city into what visitors experience today.
Savannah was established in 1733, making it Georgia's oldest city. Yet one of the remarkable things about visiting today is how clearly the original idea for the city can still be seen.
To understand Savannah, start with the Historic District.
Why Is Savannah, Georgia So Historic?
Savannah's recorded colonial history begins in February 1733, when James Edward Oglethorpe and a group of settlers arrived at Yamacraw Bluff overlooking the Savannah River.
Oglethorpe established a relationship with Tomochichi, leader of the Yamacraw, whose cooperation was instrumental in the settlement of the new town. Savannah became the first city of the new colony of Georgia, the thirteenth British colony established in North America.
But Savannah wasn't allowed to simply grow wherever someone decided to build.
It was planned.
And that decision still defines the city today.
What Is the Oglethorpe Plan?
One of Savannah's most important historical features isn't an individual building.
It's the layout of the city itself.
Oglethorpe organized Savannah around a repeating system of wards, streets, building lots and public squares.
Rather than creating one large central park, the plan placed smaller green gathering spaces throughout the community.
The earliest city began with just a handful of squares, but Savannah continued using the same basic pattern as it expanded for more than a century.
Eventually, the city grew to 24 squares following the plan. Twenty-two of those original squares survive today.
That is why exploring Savannah feels different from exploring almost any other American downtown.
You don't walk for twenty blocks and eventually arrive at the park.
The parks are woven into the city.
Walk a few blocks.
There's another square.
Walk a few more.
Another one appears.
Each has its own architecture, monuments, trees and history.
Why Does Savannah Have So Many Squares?
The squares weren't originally created simply to make Savannah beautiful.
They were functional public spaces built directly into the organization of each neighborhood.
Over time, however, they became something more.
Today, Savannah's squares serve as parks, gathering places, memorials and quiet green spaces surrounded by some of the city's most significant architecture.
Johnson Square was among the city's earliest squares.
Others were added as Savannah expanded southward, including Madison, Monterey and Lafayette squares.
And because each new section generally followed the same planning philosophy, Savannah developed a remarkably consistent urban rhythm.
Street. Building. Square. Street. Garden. House. Another square.
It makes Savannah a particularly rewarding city to explore on foot.
Savannah Became a Major Port City
Geography played an enormous role in Savannah's development.
The city sits along the Savannah River with access to the Atlantic Ocean, and its port quickly became critical to the regional economy.
During the nineteenth century, Savannah grew into a major international shipping center.
Rice and especially cotton flowed through the city's port, connecting plantations throughout Georgia and the broader South with international markets. By the antebellum period, Savannah was among the world's leading cotton-shipping ports.
The wealth generated through that economy helped produce many of the mansions, townhouses, commercial buildings and institutions that visitors admire today.
But understanding where that wealth came from is equally important.
Slavery Is an Essential Part of Savannah's History
It is impossible to accurately tell Savannah's history through architecture alone.
Although slavery was initially prohibited under Georgia's original colonial rules, it was legalized in the colony in 1750. Enslaved Africans and their descendants became central to the agriculture, trade, construction, domestic labor and economy that helped build Savannah and the surrounding Lowcountry.
By 1860, Savannah's population included thousands of enslaved African Americans alongside free Black residents whose communities had also become an important part of the city.
That history remains visible throughout the Historic District today.
One of its most significant institutions is First African Baptist Church, whose congregation traces its organization to the eighteenth century and is considered one of America's oldest continuous African American congregations.
Savannah's Black history extends through slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction, the Gullah Geechee cultural traditions of the surrounding region and the Civil Rights Movement.
Those stories aren't separate from Savannah's history.
They are Savannah's history.
What Happened in Savannah During the American Revolution?
Savannah also became a battlefield during the American Revolution.
British forces captured the city in 1778.
The following year, American and French forces attempted to retake Savannah in what became the Siege of Savannah, one of the bloodiest engagements of the Revolutionary War. The attack failed, and British forces maintained control of the city until 1782.
One of the men who fought on the American side was Polish cavalry officer Casimir Pulaski, who was mortally wounded during the battle.
His name remains everywhere in Savannah today—from monuments to Pulaski Square to the surrounding county itself.
The Revolutionary era is a good example of how Savannah's history works.
You don't necessarily have to go into a museum to encounter it.
Sometimes you're simply crossing a square named for someone who was part of it.
How Did Savannah Change During the 1800s?
The nineteenth century transformed Savannah.
Its population grew.
Its port expanded.
Railroads connected the city with Georgia's interior.
Churches, houses and civic buildings became increasingly elaborate.
The result was layer after layer of architecture rather than one single Savannah “style.”
Walk through the Historic District today and you'll encounter examples influenced by:
Federal architecture
Greek Revival
Gothic Revival
Italianate design
Romanesque architecture
Second Empire architecture
and numerous other nineteenth-century styles.
That's part of what makes walking Savannah so interesting.
Two neighboring buildings may have been constructed decades apart for entirely different kinds of owners.
And sometimes an entire block reads like an architectural timeline.
What Happened to Savannah During the Civil War?
Savannah's role as a major Southern port made it strategically important during the Civil War.
Union forces blockaded the city from the sea, while nearby Fort Pulaski fell to Union artillery in 1862.
Then, in late 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army approached Savannah at the end of the March to the Sea.
After Union forces captured Fort McAllister and opened access to naval supply lines, Confederate leadership concluded that Savannah could not be held. Confederate troops evacuated across the Savannah River into South Carolina.
Savannah surrendered to Union forces.
On December 22, 1864, Sherman famously telegraphed President Abraham Lincoln and presented Savannah, its artillery and thousands of bales of cotton as a Christmas gift.
Unlike many locations damaged during Sherman's campaign through Georgia, much of Savannah's urban fabric survived.
That survival is one reason so much nineteenth-century architecture remains visible today.
Savannah's History Continued After the Civil War
The end of the Civil War did not mean Savannah's history suddenly became simple.
Emancipation fundamentally changed life throughout the city and surrounding region.
Savannah's Black churches became centers of community leadership, education and political activity during Reconstruction and beyond.
At Second African Baptist Church, Black religious leaders met with Sherman in January 1865 as discussions unfolded about land and freedom following emancipation. The church subsequently became associated with the announcement of Special Field Order No. 15 and later with Civil Rights-era activity.
Meanwhile, Savannah continued developing as a commercial and industrial city.
New houses appeared.
Older ones changed owners.
Streetcars crossed the squares.
Businesses came and went.
And the architecture that people now consider “historic” was, at the time, simply Savannah continuing to evolve.
How Was the Savannah Historic District Preserved?
Here's an important part of Savannah's story that is easy to overlook:
Much of what you're seeing today almost disappeared.
By the middle of the twentieth century, downtown Savannah was suffering from disinvestment.
Historic buildings were being demolished.
The old City Market was torn down in 1954 for a parking garage.
And in 1955, the historic Isaiah Davenport House was threatened with demolition.
Seven Savannah women decided to do something about it.
They organized to purchase and save the house, creating what became the Historic Savannah Foundation.
That single preservation fight grew into a much larger movement.
Rather than accepting the idea that old buildings were obstacles to modernization, preservationists began arguing that Savannah's architecture and urban plan were among its greatest assets.
They were right.
When Did Savannah Become a National Historic Landmark District?
In 1966, the federal government designated Savannah's downtown historic area as a National Historic Landmark District.
The designation recognized both Savannah's surviving Oglethorpe town plan and its extraordinary concentration of architecturally significant buildings. At the time of designation, it was described as the largest urban historic district in the nation.
Historic Savannah Foundation continued purchasing and protecting threatened properties through its preservation work, helping save hundreds of historic structures throughout the city over the decades that followed.
The result is the Savannah visitors know today.
The squares.
The mansions.
The churches.
The narrow streets.
The ironwork.
The tree canopy.
None of those things survived simply because everyone always understood their value.
People made deliberate decisions to save them.
Why Is the Savannah Historic District So Walkable?
Nearly three centuries after Savannah was laid out, Oglethorpe's plan still works remarkably well for someone exploring on foot.
Instead of one long commercial strip, the Historic District unfolds gradually.
Walk through a residential block.
Cross a square.
Pass a historic church.
Turn a corner.
Find another mansion.
Continue north and eventually reach the river.
Because the squares continuously interrupt the urban grid, there are natural places to stop throughout the walk.
And there's rarely a need to hurry.
In fact, Savannah is probably better when you don't.
Lafayette Square: A Small Piece of Savannah's Bigger Story
One of those historic spaces is Lafayette Square.
Located in the southern portion of the Historic District, Lafayette Square was laid out in 1837 and named for the Marquis de Lafayette, the French military officer who supported the American cause during the Revolutionary War.
Today the square is surrounded by an extraordinary collection of Savannah history.
The Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist rises along one side.
Nearby is the childhood home of writer Flannery O'Connor.
The Andrew Low House represents another chapter of nineteenth-century Savannah.
And overlooking the square is a grand residence completed in 1873.
Today, that house is Hamilton-Turner Inn.
Stay Inside Savannah's History at Hamilton-Turner Inn
There is something fitting about exploring Savannah's history all day and then returning to a building that has its own place in that story.
Hamilton-Turner Inn was built in 1873 as the private residence of businessman and Savannah alderman Samuel Pugh Hamilton.
Hamilton became known as the “Lord of Lafayette Square,” and his elaborate home became a center of Savannah social life. The mansion later became notable as the first private residence in Savannah to have electricity.
More than 150 years later, it remains standing on the square.
But today, you can stay there.
The inn has 17 individually designed guest rooms, each named after a notable person connected to Georgia history.
And perhaps its greatest amenity is simply where it is.
Walk outside.
You're already in the Historic District.
Lafayette Square is in front of you.
The Cathedral is across the square.
The streets you came to Savannah to explore begin immediately outside the door.
You don't have to drive into historic Savannah every morning.
You wake up in it.
The Best Way to Experience Savannah History Is to Walk Through It
You could spend an entire trip studying Savannah.
The colonial period.
The Revolutionary War.
The city's connection to slavery and the cotton economy.
African American history.
The Civil War.
Architecture.
Religion.
Literature.
Preservation.
And even then, you'd only scratch the surface.
But you don't need to understand every date before Savannah begins to make an impression.
Walk beneath the live oaks.
Cross the squares.
Look at the buildings.
Read the markers.
Go inside the churches and museums.
Ask why something was built.
Ask who built it.
Ask who lived there.
Ask why it survived.
And then sit on a bench in Lafayette Square for a while.
From there, you can look toward an 1873 mansion and be reminded of one of the things that makes this city so remarkable:
Savannah's history isn't behind glass.
It's still being lived in.
Frequently Asked Questions About Savannah's Historic District
When was Savannah, Georgia founded?
Savannah was established in 1733 by James Edward Oglethorpe and a group of British colonists at Yamacraw Bluff along the Savannah River. It became the first city in the colony of Georgia.
Why is Savannah so historic?
Savannah retains much of its original eighteenth-century city plan along with a significant concentration of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architecture. Its history also encompasses the colonial era, Revolutionary War, slavery, maritime trade, Civil War, emancipation and one of America's influential historic-preservation movements.
What is the Savannah Historic District?
The Savannah Historic District is the historic core of downtown Savannah built largely around the city's original ward-and-square plan. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1966.
Why does Savannah have squares?
Public squares were an integral part of James Oglethorpe's original city plan. They organized Savannah into wards and provided shared community space throughout the city rather than concentrating green space into one central park.
How many of Savannah's original squares still exist?
Savannah eventually developed 24 squares under the original town-planning system, and 22 of those original squares remain today.
What is the oldest part of Savannah?
The earliest colonial settlement was established along the Savannah River at Yamacraw Bluff. Savannah expanded south from the river over generations while generally continuing the original ward-and-square pattern.
Can you walk around the Savannah Historic District?
Yes. Walking is one of the best ways to experience the Historic District because its squares, historic homes, churches, restaurants and cultural attractions are concentrated throughout the downtown area.
What is Lafayette Square known for?
Lafayette Square was laid out in 1837 and is surrounded by significant landmarks including the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, Andrew Low House and Hamilton-Turner Inn.
Is Hamilton-Turner Inn in the Savannah Historic District?
Yes. Hamilton-Turner Inn is located directly on Lafayette Square in Savannah's Historic District at 330 Abercorn Street.
Is Hamilton-Turner Inn a historic building?
Yes. The mansion was constructed in 1873 as the home of Samuel Pugh Hamilton and today operates as a 17-room luxury inn.
