Running tour · savannah

Bluff to Forsyth Park

1.2 mi run

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. Factors Walk and City Hall

   Look across the gap here, between Bay Street and River Street, about forty feet below. This was the cotton traders' street. A factor was a trader who sold goods on commission, and in Savannah that was mostly cotton. Their offices opened onto Bay Street, up top.

2. Johnson Square

   Look at the white marble obelisk in the middle of Johnson Square. This was the first of Savannah's squares, laid out in 1733, and it's still the largest of the twenty-two.

3. Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace

   Look at the house on the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue, with its porch of four columns. Juliette Gordon Low was born here on October 31, 1860. In early March 1912 she met a group of girls informally in this house, her parents' home, to ask if they'd like to become Girl Guides.

4. Chippewa Square

   Look at General James Oglethorpe on his tall pedestal, sword in hand, facing south down Bull Street. One old description has him "in full dress uniform with sword in hand, facing south toward the menacing Spanish colonies."

5. Mercer-Williams House

   Look at the red-brick house on Monterey Square, with iron balconies and wide bracketed eaves. It was designed for Confederate General Hugh Mercer, great-grandfather of the songwriter Johnny Mercer. Building began in 1860, then stopped during the Civil War, and the original plans were lost.

6. Forsyth Park Fountain

   Look ahead at the white fountain, sitting right on the line of Bull Street. The park began in the 1840s, on ten acres donated by William Hodgson. In 1851 it was enlarged and named for Georgia Governor John Forsyth. Like other American cities, Savannah was following the Parisian model of big city parks.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source