Plan of Savannah

A Plan of the City of Savannah
Manuscript map
Ink and watercolor on paper, ca. 1796
Manuscript Division

In 1733 James Edward Oglethorpe planned Georgia's first European settlement around several small squares, designed to defend settlers against invasion from Native Americans and the Spanish. The Filature, a building on Reynolds Square, housed an experimental silk weaving plant in the 1750s (when this enterprise failed, the building was converted to a dance hall). The City Market was located in Ellis Square. This map was drawn shortly after a devastating fire in 1796 and details the burned as well as the unharmed portions of the city.