1. Colonial Town Gate; Davenport House Historical Marker, Photograph by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
2. Gordon, Peter. A View of Savannah as it Stood the 29th of March 1734. https://www.loc.gov/item/97683565/(opens in new tab).
3. 1733 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
4. 1742 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
5. 1792 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
6. 1812 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
7. 1818 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
8. 1856 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
9. 1869 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
10. 1889 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
11. 1910 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
12. 1945 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
13. 1978 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.
14. 2026 Map of Savannah, Georgia, Created by Zachary Mitrowski, 2026.

Walking around Savannah for the first time can be trivial at first, but there’s so much character with every square that you can quickly orient yourself by recognizing a familiar statue, church, or home. Every time I walk in our great city, the feeling of awe never subsides. Contextualizing the cityscape’s history while on the ground, however, proves to be even more challenging. Everywhere you go, you find commemorative plaques and historical markers sharing what happened in these spots, inevitably followed by dates. The real challenge is to combine these events into a narrative of the city as the character: what did the streets here look like? Which squares existed and which didn’t? In these series of images, I attempted to combine the layouts of a multitude of maps and images of the city dating from 1733 to today. The shapes and colors are rudimentary, but the viewer can see the big picture with an overview of the city's history through what it looked like from the air. Many liberties were taken, especially with the outskirts of the cities, as not much data is known about specific locations relative to the city center, like where farmland would be; however, most of the street layout is drawn to match official city maps during that time. With this work, I hope to give the viewer a broad point of reference for the city's entire history, to compare what was where and when it was there relative to other areas. The maps were made purely digital, with the year of the map listed at the bottom.

Chadbourne, Christopher and Associates. A City of Streets and Squares: Savannah Design Guidelines for the Historic District. Savannah, Georgia: City of Savannah, 1992. Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia.

Harden, William. A History of Savannah and South Georgia. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Pub. Co., 1913.

Hill, Robert J., Savannah Squares: A Keepsake Tour of Gardens, Architecture, and Monuments. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Pub., 2004. Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia.

Lee, F.D. and J.L. Agnew. Historical Record of the City of Savannah. Savannah: J.H. Estill, 1869.

Wilson, Thomas D. The Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2012. Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia.