This is another good example of Mid-Century Modern architectural style in Savannah and is one of my favorite buildings in the city. Local architects Carl E. Helfrich and Daniel L. Grantham were responsible for the design. The Savannah Blue Print company has been in business since 1925.
Thanks to Cyrus Utley at Savannah Blue Print Company for this information.
Located on beautiful Forsyth Park, in the heart of Savannah’s historic district, this Victorian-Romanesque landmark served as the inspiration for The Mansion on Forsyth Park, a boutique hotel attached to the house. The hotel’s flagship restaurant, 700 Drayton, is the present occupant.
Savannah Victorian Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I believe this is located on Victory Drive. It’s another archival image I never identified.
Ardsley Park-Chatham Crescent Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
A section of Victory Drive is known for its early-20th-Century revival houses. This is a nice example.
Ardsley Park-Chatham Crescent Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Every Saturday (from 9AM-1PM) year round, the South End of Forsyth Park is the place to be in Savannah. According to their website, the Forsyth Farmers’ Market “…was founded in 2009 by six women who came together with the intention of supporting their common vision of a local food system that is good for the health of all people and the environment. They merged with the existing Starland market and sought permission from the city to allow a farmers’ market in historic Forsyth Park. The first market was on 9 May 2009…From the very beginning, the market has focused on food and food issues which is why it is a producer-only market (meaning all vendors have to be producing at least 75% of the products they sell) and allows only food and plant vendors.“
Organic vendors from all over the Low Country bring a wide variety of wholesome vegetables.
Fresh cut flowers, like these zinnias and sunflowers, are available in the spring and summer.
Products made from local crops are also on offer, like Vegetable Kingdom’s popular Hot Chow Chow.
Bell peppers, blackberries, and okra were in abundance when I was there.
Many who come to the market are already fans of organically grown foods. Growers are glad to educate those new to the market about their methods and its benefits.
All the vendors at the market accept cash, but if you’re bringing plastic, you have to buy tokens which are used like cash. They eliminate the “middle man”, i.e. the bank and its transaction fees. This way, vendors can concentrate on what’s most important: their wonderful produce and food items.
Visit them online for particulars, or better yet, make a point to visit them on any given Saturday. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget, and if you live near Savannah, you’ll likely return.
The first owner of Oatland Island, after the Guale people, was John McQueen (1756-1807) and his wife, Anne Smith McQueen (1756-1809). John was fictionalized by Eugenia Price as Don Juan McQueen, in her best-selling 1974 novel of that title. McQueen was a land speculator and well-connected Revolutionary War patriot, who, after the war, fled to Spanish Florida to escape his debtors. Anne McQueen retained Oatland until her death. Their daughter, Eliza Anne McQueen Mackay (1778-1862) and husband Robert Gordon Mackay (1772-1816) maintained crops and enslaved laborers on the island for years thereafter.
The “main building” on Oatland Island (pictured above), was built as a retirement home in 1927 for the Order of Railroad Conductors and served that purpose until 1940. It is quite typical of institutional architecture of its era. It was subsequently purchased by the United States Public Health Service and served as a hospital in World War II, specializing in the treatment of venereal diseases, until the widespread application of penicillin for this purpose rendered a hospital unnecessary. Circa 1944, it was transferred to the Malaria Control in War Areas (MCWA) division of the Public Health Service. The MCWA evolved into the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and until being surplussed in 1973, it was used as a development laboratory by the CDC. Martha Barnes adds this interesting bit of Savannah trivia: “People who read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil will remember the main building as where Luther Driggers worked and actually developed the chemical used in today’s flea collars, but in the book he was always about to poison Savannah’s water supply.“
The Chatham County Board of Education has owned it since then and it now serves over 20,000 students and visitors each year as an educational center for the surrounding Oatland Island Wildlife Center. It served as a set location for The General’s Daughter.
Carol Suttle, a Savannah native and Oatland’s most enthusiastic ambassador, contacted me several months ago about photographing the old water tower at the entrance to the center; it’s scheduled to be demolished and it’s one of her favorite structures on the island. Touring the island and its natural features with Carol and photographer Mike McCall was a real treat, and I hope to revisit in the future. Located just past downtown Savannah on the Islands Expressway (US 80), it’s often overlooked by tourists heading to Tybee Island but is well worth a visit. The site includes historic structures from the distant past as well as structures related to the government research that went on during the mid-1900s.
David Hamilton Delk, Jr. (1812-1880), built this cabin in 1837 in the Taylor’s Creek community near Gum Branch in Liberty County. It was moved and reconstructed here by the Youth Conservation Corps in 1979. The layout is of the Scots/Irish or “shotgun” design (not to be confused with the more common and more recent shotgun “house”), a vernacular form common in early Georgia.
Martha Phillips Youngblood writes that the corn crib pictured above was originally owned by her grandfather, Thomas Hilton Phillips, and was moved here from Treutlen County.
Several abandoned structures from the CDC era remain on the island.
This concrete structure indicates the danger of the work that was done here.
A hand-crafted boat from the 1970s can also be seen on the property.
Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus), as well as wolves and bison can be easily seen on the property.
Beautiful Richardson Creek runs adjacent to the island.
President James Madison called for the construction of a fort on Cockspur Island as a reaction to the War of 1812. Though construction wouldn’t begin until 1829, the need to protect Savannah from foreign invasion was an ever-present concern.
Designed by General Simon Bernard, Fort Pulaski was built by Captain J. F. K. Mansfield of the Army Corps of Engineers. Second Lieutenant Robert E. Lee was involved in the construction from 1829-31.
One of numerous Third System fortifications, Pulaski would prove an important testing ground for military resistance to new weaponry in the Civil War. The “holes” or pock marks in the side of the structure are the result of rifled cannon fire during the Union siege in the Battle of Fort Pulaski (10-11 April 1862). Pulaski’s inability to withstand this sort of firepower made such coastal fortifications obsolete and changed military architecture forever.
The arched casemates surrounding the interior of the fort held large guns for defense.
The guns were aimed through ports like these, and before the introduction of the Parrott rifle were an imposing defense.
Several re-created barracks such as the one seen below can be found in the complex.
The architecture is truly amazing.
The guns are one of the most popular attractions at the fort.
Fort Pulaski National Monument + National Register of Historic Places
This vintage postcard promoted “driver” Fred Owens’s visit to Savannah with the Strobel Air Ship, an early dirigible. Another Strobel airship was in town, driven by Stanley Vaughn, to coincide with the visit of President William Howard Taft, on 5 November 1909. Fred Owens’s ship was nearly lost when engine trouble caused it to drift out toward the ocean, but the driver’s skill helped guide it safely back toward the east side of the city.
Designed by architect Claude K. “C. K.” Howell (1869-?) and showman Arthur Melville Lucas (1854-1927), who owned more than 40 theaters in the South, the Lucas closed as a movie house in 1976. Slated for demolition in 1986, it was re-imagined by a group of Savannah preservationists as the Lucas Theatre for the Arts. Support from Clint Eastwood, Kevin Spacey and the cast of Forrest Gump, among countless others, has helped make the Lucas a premier Savannah performance space once again. It is now operated by the Savannah College of Art & Design.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Billed as the oldest continually operating theatre in the United States, the Historic Savannah Theatre was founded in 1818 and the present structure, retaining traces of the original, was remodeled to its present Art Deco appearance after a fire in 1948. Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, W. C. Fields, and Edwin Booth are among the many notables to have performed in this space throughout its history.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark