I parked on Bay Street and used one of several sets of stone stairs to reach River Street. The Savannah River flows along one side of the cobblestone street while restaurants, bars, and shops line the other. Many of the stones used as pavement in this area arrived as ballast in wooden sailing ships so that bits of several European countries form Savannah's waterfront streets. There is also some local stone and some brick. Some of the bricks used were made by Graves in Birmingham, Alabama; the same company that made the Lincoln Highway bricks I drove on Tuesday.

The bright dome belongs City Hall. I bet a few state capitals wish they had something as splendid. Among the many things I learned about Savannah (I started the day in almost complete ignorance.) was that another fellow from Ohio had been here around Christmas. That was General William Tecumseh Sherman who, when opposing forces fled the city on December 20, 1864, telegraphed Lincoln "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." At least one US president had earlier visited Savannah. On May 12, 1819, James Monroe was aboard the SS Savannah for a short excursion. The ship left town, without the president, ten days later and, after another twenty-seven days, reached Liverpool, England, to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.