Johnson Square
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
Listen
Transcript
Johnson Square was one of the first squares laid out in Oglethorpe’s Savannah plan. The plan organized the settlement into wards centered on public squares, with lots for homes and civic uses arranged around them.
The famous “Oglethorpe Plan” was more than pretty landscaping. It was a system for creating an expandable town. New wards could be added as Savannah grew, producing a repeating pattern of streets, trust lots and public space.
The design has become one of Savannah’s strongest commercial assets, but its original colony had different ambitions. Georgia’s trustees initially restricted slavery, rum and large landholdings. Those restrictions weakened and were eventually abandoned; slavery was legalized in Georgia in the early 1750s, and plantation agriculture expanded dramatically.
That shift changed the scale and wealth of Savannah. The urban plan survived while the colony’s labor regime transformed.
This is a useful reminder that city form can outlive political ideals. A square laid out in an experimental colony later became part of a prosperous slaveholding port and, much later, a preservation-tourism economy.
Enjoy the geometry. Just do not mistake continuity of streets for continuity of values. Savannah kept the plan while repeatedly changing what the city around it was for.