Found in the old railway shed of the Central of Georgia, the Savannah History Museum is a good place to stop when just arriving in Savannah, for an overview of the city’s development through the ages.

The railway house, a National Historic Landmark, is interesting in its own right. Built in the 1850s, it’s the nation’s only remaining iron-roof structure and was important as an early example of a train/shop complex. Under the same roof is Savannah’s tourist information center and a neat cafe which occupies an old passenger car.

Visits to the museum begin with a 20-minute video detailing the history of Savannah — from Oglethorpe and the settlers up into the “present”-day. The video is at least twenty years old, so its idea of modernity is amusingly stuck in the early 90s, with a power-suited poofy-haired businesswoman walking briskly down Bull Street representing “progress”. The museum exhibits are hit and miss … for every item of interest, such as one of the country’s few remaining Crestmobiles, there’s something like the Forrest Gump bench. Well, not the Forrest Gump bench, but a replica of what it kind of looked like. You know: a bench.

The museum doesn’t take long to get through, but at just $5 per adult, it’s cheap and provides a good overview of the city. There are a lot of hands-on activities, so I could see kids having a lot of fun there.

Savannah History Museum

303 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd
Location on our Savannah Map
912 651 6825

- Forrest Gump the Movie