Savannah's Historic Squares

This beautiful southern city was planned out before Georgia's founder, James Oglethorpe,ever left England. The public squares were an important design element.

Today these little gems of relaxing greenery are populated by tourists and citizens of Savannah alike. There are tour groups and dog walkers, an occasional person selling palm frond flowers or jewelery, people simply relaxing on a park bench with a cold drink.

Historically the purpose of these little parks was much more utilitarian. They were places to drill the local militia, a place to gather citizens for a last desperate defense if Indians or the Spanish attacked the infant colony. They also housed early cisterns, wells and even early public ovens.

Once there were 24 of these squares. Today 21 remain. Unfortunately a few of the ones on the West side of the historic district have been butchered up a bit for modernisation.

Most are still amazingly beautiful and surrounded by historic homes and buildings. Many have fountains or monuments that commemorate people who played a role in making Savannah Georgia the special place it is today.

Come visit Savannah and take an Uncensored History Tour with Mad Cat Tours to hear all the good, the bad and the ugly that occurred in the first city of America's 13th colony.

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Conrad Aiken-Murder, suicide and 22 years in Savannah

Conrad's parents were from New England. His father was a brilliant physician and a brain surgeon. His mother was a social butterfly, entertaining and spending money extravagantly. They lived on Oglethorpe Avenue across from Colonial Park Cemetery. At some point Conrad's father began to suffer from paranoia. He became increasingly violent and when Conrad was only 11 years old he heard two gunshots from his parents' room. He gathered his nerve and crept to their door. Peeping in, he found them both dead. Conrad sadly ran down the block to the police station and told them what had happened. Conrad was forever haunted by their deaths and the psychological horror of that scene, permeated many of his stories. In true gothic tradition, in his later years he returned to Savannah and moved into the house next door to the one he had grown up in, the one his parents had died in. His last 11 years were spent a door away from where his first 11 were lived. Conrad Aiken, a tru...

Haunted Savannah- The Bradley Lock and Key Company

This curious and fascinating shop is located on a side street off of one of Savannah's gorgeous squares. The building is older than Bradley's but the company itself dates from 1883.The shop is crammed with an ecletic array of artifacts from days gone by. And of course, keys. Hundreds and hundreds of them. The business has been owned and operated by the same family for all these years. The present owner's father, Aaron Bradley was enthralled by spiritualism and held many seances in the building. He had a friend that also shared his interests in the "other side", Harry Houdini! Houdini visited the Bradley family on several occasions. People walking by Bradley Lock and Key have often been startled by misty apparitions drifting past the windows late at night. A paranormal group investigating the building was treated to some interesting electronic voice phenomena. Hear more tales of this historic haunt on Mad Cat Tour's Ghosts of Savannah Tour. ...

Why are there so many ghosts in Savannah?

In a previous post I talked about the theory of attachment being a reason our sultry little city is so haunted. But here is a second cause for the ghosts that seem to linger in our buildings, streets and squares. There are age old superstitions regarding crossroads. Some of these date back to the 1300s. Crossroads have been a location considered neither here nor there. A place between worlds. In voodoo and hoodoo tradition it was a place to summon a dark spirit who would confer special powers upon you, if you performed the ritual properly. Blues musicians often referenced crossroads as the place they met with the devil, and won their musical talent. Numerous Celtic and European cultures believed that crossroads were a magical place to perform spells or to placate spirits. Crossroads are considered to be a veritable hot spot for paranormal activity. In Savannah's lovely historic district there is a precise and neatly laid out grid-work of streets. Each of the beautifu...

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