Savannah Avenue Historic District

Savannah Avenue in Statesboro, Georgia, was once the main road to Savannah and became the town's first suburb. The historic district covers about 50 acres of mostly single-family houses laid out on a grid, with sidewalks, rear alleys, uniform setbacks and tree-lined medians on College Boulevard and Park Avenue. Development began after 1907, when the South Georgia Land Company sold lots in the Highland Park Subdivision. Builder Joe Fields later put up inexpensive bungalows, some bought from Sears and Roebuck, for soldiers returning from World War I. Building continued into the 1940s. The result is a mixed streetscape of Georgian cottages, American Foursquares, Neoclassical, Spanish Colonial, Tudor and Colonial Revival houses, and Craftsman bungalows. The grand Donehoo-Brannen House, built 1915-1917, is the district's only Neoclassical Revival example. The district was listed for its architecture and for what it shows about automobile-era suburban planning in early 20th-century Georgia.