Lying to the east of Savannah is a group of significant historic sites shaped by their proximity to the Wilmington River and the broad eastern tidal marshes. Native Americans first settled here roughly four thousand years ago, camped along Thunderbolt bluff in a small village which possibly was abandoned prior to the arrival of colonists. The name “Thunderbolt” (already appearing prominently on a regional map of 1740) is believed to derive from a native legend about a severe storm that emitted a smell of burnt embers, now attributed to the sulfur and iron in the area’s springs. From the 1730s the division of land for plantations would shape the development of the area, particularly Bonaventure Cemetery (17.1) and Savannah State University (17.5). Thunderbolt itself boasted a rich and varied history, accommodating innovative agricultural, industrial, and leisure architecture that has now completely vanished, with little to suggest what the community looked like over its long history.
The area’s location along the Wilmington River (also called Augustine Creek and Warsaw River), which drains directly into the Atlantic Ocean, made it a strategic defense point for successive groups occupying the area. Thunderbolt was one of several small “agrarian-military outposts” or “fortified farming villages” established by Oglethorpe in the early years of the colony. In the early 1730s, the Trustees granted Roger and James Lacey, Joseph Hetherington, and Philip Bishop county lots of five hundred acres each along Thunderbolt Bluff. From the American Revolution through the antebellum period, Thunderbolt comprised a network of large plantations, with only a few small farms. During the Civil War, Thunderbolt Battery was built to defend the Wilmington River from Union forces, using a palisaded earthwork armed by 1863 with fourteen cannon manned by the Phoenix riflemen volunteer militia. The earthwork and the town were abandoned in 1864 when Fort McAllister (fourteen miles south of the city) came under attack during Sherman’s March to the Sea, and nothing remains of this significant Civil War site.
In 1856, Thunderbolt village was incorporated with the official name Warsaw (from Wassaw, which derived from the Creek word “wiso” for sassafras), but residents ignored this designation and continued to refer to the community as Thunderbolt. By the 1880s it had become a thriving resort community for city residents, who traveled here on suburban railways to escape the summer heat, flocking to hotels and boarding houses, as well as a casino, racetrack, golf course, and the Thunderbolt Yacht Club. The resort industry declined with the rise of the automobile and eventual destruction of Savannah’s extensive streetcar and suburban railroad system after World War II, and Thunderbolt became a prosperous fishing village during this period. Beset by ready supplies of imported shrimp and economic decline in recent decades, the once-thriving Savannah fishing industry based here retains just two facilities: one on River Drive and one across the river on Isle of Armstrong. In the twenty-first century, gentrification and condominium developments (such as Warsaw Bluff) have privatized what was once a publicly accessible and working waterfront.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.