The oldest American city founded by settlers is St. In the 17th century, Newport (Rhode Island) and Charleston (South Carolina) were founded. Meanwhile, Mobile (Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana) and Savannah (Georgia) were established in the 18th century. The oldest city in Georgia is Savannah.
It was established in 1733 by General James Oglethorpe of England and quickly became an important port. He and 120 passengers sailed the Savannah River and created America's first planned city. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Savannah was the southernmost commercial port of the Thirteen Colonies. Savannah is located on the east coast of Georgia, very close to the South Carolina border.
In the formative years of Savannah, and for most of Georgia's period as a proprietary colony, slavery was banned. The Candler Oak Tree is a red oak located near Forsyth Park on a property owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design. For the rest of the war, Savannah was blockaded from its maritime side, and conditions for the city's civilian population became extremely difficult. In 1955, a group of women from Savannah saved the Davenport House of 1820 from destruction, an action that launched a movement of community preservation in Savannah.
After establishing cordial relations with Chief Tomochichi of the resident Indians of Yamacraw and with the Indian merchant and liaison Mary Musgrove, Oglethorpe began to carry out his idea of designing Savannah. This line, from Savannah to Macon, was completed in 1843, allowing more cotton to be shipped from the interior of the state to the coast. Savannah became a national leader in the pulp and food processing industries with the opening of large scale operations at Union Bag (which merged with Camp Paper in 1995) and the Savannah sugar refinery (Dixie Crystals) in the 1930s. These bases, together with the port's maritime facilities, allowed Savannah to perform a important logistical role in the successful projection of U.
In 1833, the Georgia Central Railroad (originally the Georgia Central Railroad and Canal Company), of which the city of Savannah was the largest shareholder, received its charter from the Georgia legislature. After the American Revolution, Savannah was also the original capital of the state of Georgia, although Atlanta now houses the state government. Teachers from the north came to Savannah to provide education to blacks, but progress was slow; it wasn't until 1878 that a public school for blacks was established. Today, the Savannah Historic District is one of the largest urban preservation programs of its kind in the United States.
Most of Savannah's new black citizens lived in miserable conditions and were subjected to exorbitant rents and prices by resentful whites. Savannah is the oldest city in the Deep South state of Georgia and was the British colonial capital of the province of Georgia and, later, the first capital of the state of Georgia.
