Savannah has survived devastating fires, powerful hurricanes,
rampant epidemics, several wars and destructive insects to
become one of America's most beautiful cities. Georgia's first
city, Savannah was established in 1733, west of where the river
of the same name meets the Atlantic Ocean, by Gen. James
Oglethorpe. The colony of Georgia, the last of the original 13,
was a haven for England's working poor, who flocked to the New
World looking for a new start. Under the colony's original
charter, rum, lawyers and slavery were forbidden, at least for a
while. Oglethorpe designed America's first planned city with
wide-open streets and shady public squares and parks, and 21 of
Savannah's original 24 squares are still around. Savannah
suffered through major fires in 1796 and 1820, a virulent
outbreak of yellow fever, the occupation of enemy forces during
the American Revolution and the Civil War and the wrath of boll
weevils, which all but destroyed the state's cotton crop and
economy on the eve of the Great Depres