West Darien Historic District

West Darien is the western section of the coastal Georgia town of Darien, laid out on a gridiron plan surveyed in 1806 by Thomas McCall. Union troops burned the town in 1863, so nearly all surviving buildings date from after the Civil War, mainly 1870 to 1910, when Darien thrived as a timber-exporting port. The district includes a commercial area along Broad Street and U.S. 17, white residential streets of mostly wooden cottages and bungalows, and Mentionville, an African-American neighborhood of shotgun, hall-parlor and central-hall houses near former sawmills. Bayard Square, home to the First Presbyterian Church, survives as the district's public square. Prehistoric shell middens and historic archaeological sites lie along Cathead Creek and the river bluff. The district was listed for its links to Darien's changing industries, its early planned town layout, its African-American heritage, its representative architecture, and the information its archaeological sites have provided.