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Savannah: Literary City, Victorian Elegance and Oglethorpe Grid

Walk the Wormsloe tabby ruins, relax in Forsyth Park, trace the Midnight in the Garden story to Mercer House and Bonaventure Cemetery, follow Sherman footsteps through the Civil War sites, and understand why Oglethorpe square plan made Savannah a model city.

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1
Wormsloe Historic Site and Tabby Construction
Wormsloe Historic Site, 10 miles south of downtown Savannah on the Isle of Hope, preserves the colonial estate of Noble Jones, one of the original 1733 settlers who arrived with James Oglethorpe. The entry drive, lined with 400 live oaks draped in Spanish moss for 1.5 miles, is one of the most photographed landscapes in Georgia. Jones built the estate fortification and colonial tabby structures using tabby concrete, a material made from oyster shells, lime, sand, and water that was the primary construction medium of coastal Georgia and South Carolina colonial builders. Tabby ruins of the colonial fortification remain at the site. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources manages Wormsloe as a state historic site with living history demonstrations.
2
Forsyth Park Fountains and Cultural Life
Forsyth Park, laid out in 1851 across 30 acres in the Victorian District, is anchored by its white ornamental fountain installed in 1858 and modeled on fountains at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. A second smaller fountain depicting girls holding fish was added in 1858. The park hosts the Savannah Jazz Festival each September, one of the largest free jazz festivals in the American South. The Savannah Book Festival, held each February, draws authors from across the country for readings in the park and nearby venues. The park fragrant garden for the blind, established in the 1970s, uses labeled plantings of fragrant herbs and flowers designed for visitors who are visually impaired.
3
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
John Berendt published Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1994, a nonfiction account of the 1981 shooting death of Danny Hansford by antiques dealer Jim Williams in his Mercer House mansion. The book spent 216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, a record for nonfiction. Clint Eastwood directed the 1997 film adaptation starring Kevin Spacey and Jude Law. The book and film transformed Savannah tourism, increasing visitor numbers dramatically and establishing the city as a literary and cultural destination. Mercer House at 429 Bull Street was built in 1868 and now operates as a museum open for tours. The Bonaventure Cemetery, prominently featured in the book, became so overwhelmed with literary tourists that the Bird Girl statue on the cover was moved to the Telfair Museum for protection.
4
Bonaventure Cemetery and Victorian Mourning Culture
Bonaventure Cemetery occupies 160 acres of bluff-top land above the Wilmington River, originally the plantation of Josiah Tattnall. The site became a cemetery in 1846 and filled with elaborate Victorian funerary sculpture reflecting 19th century mourning culture when cemeteries served as public parks and picnic grounds. The cemetery contains the graves of lyricist Johnny Mercer, poet Conrad Aiken, and Gracie Watson, a young girl whose life-size marble statue at her grave has accumulated coins, toys, and flowers left by visitors for over a century. Live oak trees with massive horizontal limbs and heavy Spanish moss create a canopy that photographers and painters have documented for 150 years. Evening tours operate year-round through the Historic Savannah Foundation.
5
Savannah Civil War Sites and Sherman Occupation
General William T. Sherman captured Savannah on December 21, 1864, and famously telegraphed President Lincoln offering the city as a Christmas gift along with 25,000 bales of cotton. Sherman spared Savannah the destruction he had inflicted on Atlanta, partly because city leaders surrendered peacefully and partly because he recognized the city strategic value as a port. Sherman headquartered at the Green-Meldrim House on Madison Square, a Gothic Revival mansion built in 1853 that is now a parish house for St. John Church. The Savannah Campaign lasted six weeks and covered 300 miles from Atlanta. Fort McAllister, south of Savannah on the Ogeechee River, was the final Confederate position protecting the city and fell in a 15-minute Union infantry assault on December 13, 1864.
6
Savannah Squares Plan and Urban Design
James Oglethorpe laid out Savannah in 1733 using a modular grid plan of wards, each containing a public square surrounded by residential lots and reserving land for civic and commercial uses. The original plan called for 24 such wards. By the time the plan was fully built out in 1851, 24 squares had been established, of which 22 survive today. The plan is considered one of the most innovative urban designs in American history and has been studied at architecture and planning schools for a century. Each square has a distinct character, from the monument-centered Johnson Square to the romantic moss-draped Chippewa Square where the Forrest Gump bench scene was filmed in 1994. The squares provide Savannah with 22 small parks within walking distance of nearly every downtown address.