Gordonston Historic District

History Of Gordonston Historic District

Gordonston was laid out by - and takes its name from - Savannah's prominent and influential Gordon family (William Washington Gordon I was the first president of one of Georgia's pioneer railroads, the Central of Georgia, which completed the first line from Savannah to Macon in 1843. His granddaughter, Juliette Gordon Low, would later found the Girl Scouts of the USA).

The development of Gordonston was the work of William Washington Gordon III, grandson of the elder Gordon and brother of Juliette (or Daisy, as she was more usually known). He built the suburb on 80 acres of the Gordon family farmlands.

The five Gordon children, of whom William Washington Gordon III was one, inherited the 80-acre trace of land east of Savannah in 1917. William bought out the shares of his three sisters and brother, laying out the subdivision (the design was made by J.G. Langdon) that took the family's name.

One of the city’s later streetcar suburbs, it was situated on a line that ran out along Kinzie Avenue – named for one of Juliette Gordon Low's middle names – to the resort town of Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt line closed in the 1940s, streetcar travel by then superseded by the automobile.

Streetcar suburbs in Savannah were developed from the 1870s, initially to the south of the city where land suitable for building on was most readily available.

These early suburbs were largely unplanned, the trend for suburbs designed by a landscape architect or a specific developer not taking much hold in Savannah until the twentieth century.

By the 1910s, Savannah's first wave of suburban development was already complete, resulting in what is now the large Victorian Historic District to the south of downtown and Collinsville, now Eastside, to its east.

By this time, planned subdivisions laid out by a landscape architect or inspired amateur - with streets and lots designed to provide a contrast to the ordinary city grid - were more common, suburbs such as Ardsley Park and Chatham Crescent laid out around the same time as Gordonston.

Gordonston's design is of streets arranged along avenues radiating out from the central Pierpont Circle, with large lots allowing for spacious gardens and the growth of many trees.

Crepe (or crape) myrtles and live oaks were planted out along the streets of the subdivision, such as the avenue of live oaks shading Atkinson Avenue, as was the practice commonly employed in Savannah. Some very mature trees predating the Gordonston neighborhood can also be seen here and there.

Despite the general popularity of this new style of suburban living, the Gordonston subdivision was slow to develop, perhaps due to competition from the other suburbs recently constructed to Savannah's south.

Only a few dozen lots had been sold by 1930, and a quarter of the lots were still remaining in 1945, when the post-WWII building boom finally saw the remainder of the district built up.

Most of the houses in the district were therefore built between the late 1910s into the 1940s.

The primarily residential architecture of Gordonston Historic Distirct mostly employs the Greek and Colonial Revival styles, longtime favorites of American homeowners, and the Craftsman style that became increasingly popular in the early twentieth century.

Gordonston has maintained a cohesion rare in other Savannah neighborhoods, and has one of the oldest neighborhood associations in the city.

Juliette Gordon Low Park

Gordonston is also home to the 6-acre Juliette Gordon Low Park, set aside by Juliette Gordon Low in 1926 for the recreation of Savannah’s citizens (some Gordonston residents have more recently claimed that the park was intended for their own private use).

Juliette Gordon Low Park is unique in Savannah in being enclosed with an iron fence. This was once a feature of many of Savannah's small parks (largely intended to keep the livestock then roaming free from entering these recreation spots), but the practice had fallen from favor by the late 19th century. A small building, constructed to host Girl Scout meetings in the 1940s, also still stands in the park.

The park, in its earlier years variously also known as Brownie Park or the Gordon Memorial Park, was officially dedicated to Gordon Low's Memory in 1940.

References

Steven H. Moffson, National Register Of Historic Places Registration Form, Gordonston Historic District. National Park Service, 2001.