January 2012 Travel Photo: Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia

Picture by Catholicgauze

Savannah was the first English settlement in what is now the state of Georgia.  The colony was founded as a buffer between the English colony of South Carolina and the Spanish colony of Florida.  It also served as a convenient way to put debtors to work (rather than have them sit in debtors jail the British had them found Georgia).  The colony originally forbid four things: no rum, no slaves, no lawyers, and no Catholics.

The city was well planned out with a series of squares being spaced out by a few blocks.


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As the city expanded people wanted something more grandiose than the standard square.  By the mid-1800s Parisian city planning became popular throughout the world.  The Parisian model had residential neighborhoods radiating from giant parks with fountains, open green spaces, gardens, and children's areas.  So in the 1840s the city of Savannah constructed Forsyth Park to serve as the radiant for the new neighborhoods growing south of the Historic Downtown.


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The fountain is a widely recognized site featured in movies Cape Fear and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.