River Street and Factors Walk - Built on Cotton

Photo: Pokemonprime, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on Savannah, a free self-guided tour.

You are standing on the bluff where Savannah's money was made. The tall brick buildings below you, stepping down to the river, were cotton warehouses and offices. Merchants called factors bought and sold cotton here on commission, and the iron bridges connected their offices to Bay Street above.

The cobbled lanes and ramps are called Factors Walk. In the 1850s and 1860s, workers built a long retaining wall from ballast stones, rocks that ships carried for weight and then dumped before loading cotton. Look closely and you will see stones from many different places.

The cotton that passed through here was grown and picked by enslaved people on plantations across Georgia and beyond, and the riverfront warehouses were also used to hold enslaved people. Today River Street is lined with shops and restaurants, and the big container ships still pass close by on their way to the port upriver. Take the ramp down carefully; the old stones are steep and uneven.

Getting here: Walk north on Bull Street to Bay Street, cross carefully, and go a few steps east to the iron railings that look down over Factors Walk.

Did you know?: The ballast-stone retaining wall along the bluff stretches about three quarters of a mile and was built by an Irish stonemason named Michael Cash.

Photo op: From one of the iron footbridges, look down the narrow lane of Factors Walk with the old warehouses rising on both sides.

More on Wikipedia: Factors Walk · River Street · Savannah River

River Street and Factors Walk - Built on Cotton

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