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World Globe Gas Tank

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1956–1957; 1959 painted; 1999–2000 repainted. 14 E. 73rd St

This sixty-foot-diameter globe, built by the Savannah Gas Company as a storage tank, was located just south of the Derenne Avenue city limit to protect the residents from a gas explosion. Following the suggestion of R. E. Turner Jr. (media magnate Ted Turner’s father), the company painted it to resemble a globe with traditional national boundaries. A to Z Coating and Sons purchased the globe in 1998 and repainted it in a more realistic manner that featured Hurricane Floyd, which threatened Savannah in 1999. A three-foot-diameter moon at the curb on 73rd Street serves as its mailbox. The globe is now completely surrounded by the city, marking the beginning of the incredible scale and pace of development south of Derenne Avenue from the late 1950s to the present.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler
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Data

What's Nearby

House
House (Daniel L. Grantham House)
Richard Lane House (Bob Kaminsky House)
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Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "World Globe Gas Tank", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-21.1.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 280-281.

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