Originally located at 516 Ott Street, this one-and-a-half-story house has an integral front porch featuring elaborate turned brackets and balusters. The side-gabled massing, the porch, and the plan of the house are characteristic of a Creole cottage, a common house type found in the Southeast and the Gulf Coast. Eugene King, a black entrepreneur who owned a pressing business, was its second owner; his widow, Sally King, married Robert Tisdell, a longshoreman. The proposed demolition of this building became the focus of public outcry in 1978. W. W. Law and others proposed that the cottage be moved and used as a center for black heritage, thereby facilitating neighborhood renewal. In 1979, at the urging of Georgia’s governor, George Busbee, the Historic Savannah Foundation purchased the current lot and the house was moved the following year (though it was set on a full basement that did not previously exist). To its east extends a row of railroad worker cottages typical of the area.
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King-Tisdell Cottage
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