Vernonburg Historic District

Vernonburg is a small coastal community on White Bluff, a bend of the Vernon River about eight miles south of downtown Savannah. It grew in three phases: a mid-18th-century German colonial settlement, a mid- to late 19th-century resort and railroad suburb, and a 20th-century bedroom suburb. Two narrow, oak-shaded streets, Dancy and Rockwell Avenues, form an L along the bluff. The district counts 41 contributing resources, mostly houses built between the 1840s and 1940s in Greek Revival, Italianate, Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles, plus archaeological sites. Because residents moved to larger sites nearer the river, remains of the original 60 by 90 foot colonial lots were preserved. Shovel tests and excavations in 1990 and 1993 documented that settlement. The district is significant for the architecture of its houses, which reflect ordinary Georgia building practice, and for archaeology that can show how a colonial ethnic village became an Anglo-American resort and suburb.