Savannah's Oglethorpe Square

Upper New Square was laid out in 1742 and was later renamed in honor of General James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony.

There is no central monument here, but there is a memorial to the pacifist Moravians who arrived in 1736 on the same ship that brought John and Charles Wesley to Savannah.

The Oglethorpe monument is in Chippewa Square.

Oglethorpe Square is one of the 24 squares that was designed and incorporated into the plan for the city of Savannah.

Notable Buildings on Oglethorpe Square:

Cluskey Buildings -- (1830) 127 Abercorn Street. Brick office building with leafy ironwork, blue-green shutters.

Richardson-Owens-Thomas House -- (c. 1819) 124 Abercorn Street on the East side of the square. The Owens-Thomas House, designed by William Jay, is one of the finest examples of English Regency architecture in the U.S. The home was built from 1816 to 1819 for cotton merchant Richard Richardson and his wife Francis Bolton (the sister-in-law of William Jay), but was soon lost in the financial depression of 1820. In 1830, the property was acquired by George Welchman Owens, congressman, lawyer, and one-time mayor of Savannah. It remained in the Owens family until 1951, when Margaret Thomas, Owens' granddaughter, bequeathed it to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (now the Telfair Museum of Art).

Baptist Center -- Originally the Unitarian Church, now the Baptist Center (Jingle Bells Church), sits on the square.

Urban Health Center -- On the Sourthwest corner is the Urban Health Center, originally built in 1907 as the Marine Hospital.

Location:

Oglethorpe Square is located on Abercorn, between State and York Streets.

The Squares of Savannah Georgia:

Savannah was originally laid out around four open squares. The plan anticipated growth of the city and thus expansion of the grid; additional squares were added during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, and by 1851 there were twenty four squares in downtown Savannah. Three of these have been demolished or altered beyond recognition, leaving twenty-one squares at the present. One of those, Ellis Square, is currently being rebuilt. Most squares are named in honor or in memory of a person, persons, or event, and many contain monuments, markers, memorials, statues, plaques, and other tributes. The first squares were originally intended to provide colonists space for military exercises. All of the squares are a part of Savannah's historic district and fall within an area of less than one half square mile. Savannah's city plan was designed by General James Oglethorpe, and his layout has been hailed as the most intelligent grid in America. The American Society of Civil Engineers has honored Oglethorpe's plan for Savannah as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and in 1994 the plan was nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The squares are a major point of interest for millions of tourists visiting Savannah each year, and they have been credited with stabilizing once-deteriorating neighborhoods and revitalizing Savannah's downtown commercial district.