Beyond Downtown and Its Immediate Suburbs

Savannah has always extended beyond what comprises the downtown area and its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century suburbs. Plantation lands; towns such as Thunderbolt, Montgomery, Beaulieu, and Parkersburg; African American communities such as Sandfly and Pin Point; and forts and islands occupied what remain peripheral parts of the county. What makes the city different from other American urban settings, beyond its unique riverfront and famous plan, is the manner in which the waterways between the Savannah and Ogeechee rivers shaped its growth from 1733 to the present. Small narrows, inlets, wetlands, and marshes made movement between the communities difficult before the arrival of railroads, streetcars, and automobiles. They also had a unique effect on development from the nineteenth century to the period of postwar sprawl. Yet despite the way water shaped Savannah, the outer communities were able to maintain a connection to the city while growing in a relatively autonomous and historically important way. This concluding chapter describes the architectural and urban significance of those areas beyond Savannah’s celebrated downtown and earliest suburbs.

These more peripheral and in some cases rarely visited or studied places tell a more complete story of changes in the city’s cultural fabric, lost architecture, and small communities, as well as the architectural history of its vital African American communities, which dealt with slavery and almost a century of segregation. The military structures, former plantation lands, suburbs, and the architecture of affluent and poor communities discussed in this chapter similarly highlight the costs and benefits of Savannah’s rapid and often uneven growth, especially in the twentieth century.