Tybee Light, 1773, & Head Keeper’s House, 1881

July 6, 2012, 12:26 pm

Tybee Island, Georgia

The lower sixty feet of this lighthouse date to John Mulryne’s construction of 1773, itself a replacement for two previous lighthouses (the first of which was built for James Oglethorpe, in 1736). So strategic and important to the future growth of Georgia was the placement of a lighthouse at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the Savannah River that General Oglethorpe threatened to hang the incompetent builder of the first beacon. Numerous modifications and additions have been made over the ensuing two centuries.

http://www.tybeelighthouse.org/index.htm

The head lightkeeper’s house, seen below, was built in 1881.

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Savannah Cotton Exchange, 1887

December 7, 2012, 11:51 am

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Designed by famed Boston architect William Gibbons Preston (1842-1910), the Savannah Cotton Exchange is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. It represents a time in which Savannah was the leading cotton market in the United States and second in the world. In that sense, it was as important to the cotton industry as the New York Stock Exchange is to the financial industry today. It’s one a few structures in the world to be built over a street (Factor’s Walk). Since closing its doors after the decline of the cotton trade, it has been home to the Savannah Chamber of Commerce and more notably the freemasons, who have used it as Solomon’s Masonic Lodge since 1976. It is not open to the public, but remains one of the most photographed places in Savannah. Nearly as memorable as the structure itself is the fountain out front, representing a gryphon (griffin), or winged lion. Damaged by a car in 2008, it was replaced in 2010.

Savannah, Georgia

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Historic Savannah Theatre

January 18, 2013, 6:24 am

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Billed as the oldest continually operating theatre in the United States, the 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 over its history.

http://savannahtheatre.com/theatre.php

Savannah, Georgia

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Lucas Theatre, 1921

January 18, 2013, 6:43 am

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Designed by architect C. K. Howell and showman Arthur Lucas, 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 with assistance from the Savannah College of Art & Design.

http://www.lucastheatre.com/venues/lucas/history.cfm

Savannah, Georgia

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Dolphin Tours & Shrimp Boats, Lazaretto Creek

February 20, 2013, 12:47 pm

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Lazaretto Creek is located on the edge of Tybee Island and can be accessed at the Lazaretto Creek Fishing Pier off U. S. Highway 80 or just over the Lazaretto Creek Bridge. It’s a great area for tourists and locals alike to stop and take in the salt marsh scenery. Georgia’s endangered shrimping industry is usually represented with a few boats and Captain Mike’s bright yellow Dolphin boats (in business since 1992) herald a boom in ecotourism. It’s really a nice contrast between old and new.

Tybee Island, Georgia

http://www.tybeedolphins.com/

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Strobel Air Ship Visits Savannah, Circa 1909

October 4, 2013, 11:08 am

≫ Next: Cockspur Island Lighthouse, 1855

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This vintage postcard promoted “driver” Fred Owens’ visit to Savannah with the Strobel Air Ship, an early dirigible. Thanks to Mike McCall for sharing with Vanishing Coastal Georgia.

Savannah, Georgia

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Cockspur Island Lighthouse, 1855

October 25, 2013, 7:08 am

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There was a brick daymark (daytime navigational aid without a light) on Cockspur Island by 1839. Its location at the busy entrance to the South Channel of the Savannah River just west of Tybee Island dictated its importance and by 1848, the prominent New York architect John Norris was contracted to design an illuminated tower. Norris was best known for designing the United States Customs House in Savannah, as well as the Mercer-Wilder House and the Green-Meldrim House, where General Sherman was headquartered while in Savannah. An 1854 hurricane destroyed this structure and it was rebuilt the next year. George Washington Martus served as one of the lighthouse keepers in the early 1880s but was transferred to the nearby Elba Island lighthouse in 1884. His sister Florence lived there with him and for over forty years was known for greeting all the ships entering and leaving Savannah with the wave of a handkerchief or lantern. She became a local legend and was known as “The Waving Girl”. A statue of Florence Martus is now a popular landmark on River Street. The Cockspur Island lighthouse was discontinued in 1909. Stabilized between 1995-2000 and relit with a solar beacon in 2007, it remains in critical condition.

A nice 3/4 mile trail leads to the best viewing area for the lighthouse, but it’s a fairly strenuous walk over uneven terrain.

The lighthouse is open to the public but can only be accessed by boat at low tide.

http://www.nps.gov/fopu/historyculture/cockspur-light.htm

http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=324

Cockspur Island, Georgia

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Savannah River at Cockspur Island

October 25, 2013, 7:35 am

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Seen near where it meets the Atlantic Ocean, the Savannah River becomes more estuary than traditional river. Tides here can affect its levels by up to seven feet, and the current is quite swift. This vantage point can be accessed from the parking lot at Fort Pulaski National Monument, on the trail leading to Battery Hambright. It’s an easy walk and less than half a mile.

Cockspur Island, Georgia

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John Wesley Memorial

October 25, 2013, 8:07 am

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This simple brick and marble column commemorates John Wesley’s landing in America on 6 February 1736. Cockspur Island was then known as Peeper Island. The founder of Methodism was sent to the fledgling Georgia colony by the trustees to be a missionary. A quote from Wesley’s journal is memorialized on the column: “Fri. 6,-About eight in the morning I first set my foot on American ground. It was a small uninhabited island,…over against Tybee, called by the English Peeper Island. Mr. Oglethorpe led us through the moorish land on the shore to a rising ground,…we chose an open place surrounded with myrtles, bays, and cedars, which sheltered us both from the sun and wind, and called our little flock together to prayers.”

The memorial was placed in 1950 by the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames and is easily reached from the parking lot at Fort Pulaski National Monument.

Cockspur Island, Georgia

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Fort Pulaski, 1847

October 25, 2013, 9:04 am

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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.

Cockspur Island, Georgia

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/fort-pulaski

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Cherub Ornaments of Bonaventure Cemetery

February 11, 2015, 4:26 am

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Andrew Granger (1902-1904)

In cemetery symbolism, cherubs almost always represent departed children. Bonaventure has numerous incarnations of these and I’ve chosen some of its best examples. The variety among different carvers is remarkable to me. Also known as winged babies or winged heads, cherub ornaments were most abundant in the late Victorian era, due especially to high infant mortality rates.

Dorothy Miles Willcox, d. 1907

Mary Catherine Roberts (1923-1926)

Mary J. Schwarz (1901-1902)

John N. Schwarz (No date discernible)

Dieter Infant

Savannah, Georgia

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Oatland Island, Savannah

April 28, 2015, 7:33 am

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Built in 1927 as a retirement home for the Brotherhood of Railroad Conductors, the “main building” today serves as an educational center for the surrounding Oatland Island Wildlife Center. It is quite typical of institutional architecture of its era and subsequently served as a Public Health Service hospital in World War II. Until being surplussed in 1973, it was used as a development laboratory by the Centers for Disease Control. The Chatham County Board of Education has owned it since then and it serves over 20,000 students and visitors each year as a wildlife education facility today. To movie buffs, the building may be familiar to viewers of the John Travolta movie, The General’s Daughter, as it was used as a set location. And 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.

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! See the link at the end of this post for specifics about admission and other particulars.

David Delk, Jr., 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.

The two abandoned structures pictured above are remnants of the bureaucratic era on the island. 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.

http://internet.savannah.chatham.k12.ga.us/schools/oat/default.aspx

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60814-d1077850-Reviews-Oatland_Island_Wildlife_Center-Savannah_Georgia.html

Chatham County, Georgia

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Forsyth Farmers’ Market, Savannah

June 26, 2015, 6:14 am

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Every Saturday (from 9AM-1PM) year round, the South End of Forsyth Park is the place to be in Savannah. 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. * from the Forsyth Farmers’ Market website

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.

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.

http://forsythfarmersmarket.com/

Chatham County, Georgia

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Stars & Stripes, Highway 80

July 3, 2015, 2:38 pm

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Travelers to Tybee Island have undoubtedly seen this flag, flying proudly in the marsh on Highway 80 a bit west of Fort Pulaski.

Chatham County, Georgia

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Ogeechee River at Kings Ferry

July 19, 2015, 2:06 pm

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This was shot at sunset, looking west.

Chatham County, Georgia

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Italian Renaissance House, Savannah

December 17, 2015, 8:24 am

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I believe this one’s located on Victory Drive. In organizing my archives, I came across it, but it wasn’t identified.

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Colonial Revival House, Savannah

December 17, 2015, 8:53 am

≫ Next: 700 Drayton Street, 1888, Savannah

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I believe this is located on Victory Drive. It’s another archival image I never identified.

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700 Drayton Street, 1888, Savannah

December 17, 2015, 10:13 am

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Savannah Victorian Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

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.

http://www.mansiononforsythpark.com/

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Francis M. Stone House, 1818, Savannah

December 17, 2015, 10:44 am

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Savannah National Historic Landmark District

Considered one of the finest examples of Federal style architecture in Savannah, the restored Stone House is also located on idyllic Columbia Square. It is a private residence.

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Charlie Teeple’s, Thunderbolt

February 10, 2016, 11:19 am

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From 1975-2004, Charlie Teeple’s in Thunderbolt was one of Savannah’s favorite seafood restaurants. Steamed crabs and oysters were among their most popular offerings. This building wasn’t the restaurant, which was located on the nearby Wilmington River, but rather Charlie’s retail store, where fresh boiled crabs remained in demand. I’m not sure when it closed, but it’s been abandoned for quite some time.

http://savannahnow.com/stories/121504/2658669.shtml#.VruGoNCdxGk

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