Old Town Trolley - Best way to see Savannah | American Prohibition Museum | Georgia Railroad Museum

Slow down. I want y'all to look to the left and the right. This is Jaw Street here. On the count of three, we're going to Ooh. And a Ready? 1 2 3. Wow. Jaw Street was named the most beautiful and most picturesque street to walk down in the United States. Southern Living magazine gave us that title back in 2017. Y'all know what else? I found my house. It's on Jones Street, y'all. 118 East John Street. Now, do not go on Zillow looking up my house, okay? I have already claimed that house. That's what I told my husband. That's what I want for Christmas. So, y'all wish me luck, okay? Okay. Okay. I want the house for Christmas from my husband and for my kids. They need to give me a city. Now, I know I'm a little ambitious, but I think it'll happen. Hopefully. [Music] Hi everybody. My name is Randy and I'm Diane and we're Zephr Travels and today we're in Savannah, Georgia and we are taking an oldtime Charlie tour around the city. We find these tours are a great way to get your bearings and get an idea of what you see and then you can hop on and off and see other things and spend some more time in different areas. Yeah. So, let's get going on our tour. Yeah, we take our tour and we're going to stop at a couple of the places. Second of England granted James Edward Ogdorf and 20 other trustees a charter to form a new colony. That colony would be, of course, the colony of Georgia. It was the 13th and the last colony that was ever formed. Now, Uncle Thorp handpicked 114 men that he thought were trustworthy and hardworking to come and help him build up the brand new colony of Georgia. In April of 173, they set sail on a ship named an that's where they landed at the Creek Nation Yamra Bluff. That's also where they met the chief of the Yamocra Indians. His name was Chief Tomichi. Now, Tamaichi and Obthorp, y'all, they were such good friends that some people even say Tamachi is the co-founder of the colony of Georgia. In fact, they were such good friends that upon Tamaichi's death in 1739, Oathorp gave him a full military funeral and served as a pawbearer in Tamaichi's uh funeral. Now back in 1734, Overthorp and Tomichi, they went back to England so that they can sign what they call the treaty of friendship. Now that treaty just basically determined which land will remain the Yammerrop love territory and which land will become the territory of England and the brand new colony of Georgia. Now guys, when Overthorp came over here, he already knew what he wanted Savannah to look like. He started out with 24 park light squares. We did lose two of those squares to the development of the city. So now we're down to 22 of those park light squares. You guys will see about 13 of those squares throughout the tour. Our first stop off the tour is going to be the Savannah Visitors Center. We're going to head in here and see what there is to see. We did see some trains, so that might be kind of neat. [Applause] Well, we stopped here at the visitor center to get a and got a snack before we start checking on what's here. Right. Just a little sustenance before we start to walk. Yep. Now, we did start our day at the campground and the trolley sent a shuttle bus to the campground to pick us up. So, that was nice. It saved us having to drive down here and find a place to park. Yeah, cuz there I mean probably the taking the trolley tour is the best way to go because there's so much to see. Yeah. That um you might have to take like a week to see it all. Yeah, we will, you know, see what we can see today. But we they do have a deadline at 4:00 to get the the shuttle back. I think the Charlie's only run the five anyways. So, so we figured we'd pick a couple spots that we would stop at and check them out and then uh you know, hopefully get back in time to get our shuttle back. Well, it's only 11:30. Mhm. It seems like it's it was about 90 minutes to loop around the full city. So, we we've actually ridden the trolley around the city once already just to see what was around. So, took about 90 minutes cuz I think we got on about 10:00. Mhm. So, I think there's more to see than what we're going to have time to see. [Music] Muffin's pretty good. I don't know. Very moist. Yeah. By the way, I'm now known as the Anthony. Our first stop off the trolley is the Georgia State Railroad Museum. This is located just behind the visitor center at the former Central of Georgia Railway Repair Shops. We thought this would be interesting as we were both railroad fans. [Music] This trolley looks to be functional. Probably they get it out for special events and such. Pretty cool. Savannah and Atlanta. [Music] So, this is the roundhouse where they would come and store the trains and do service on them. This turntable is one of I think this they said four in the country. They're still operational. This building originally was a complete circle and this half of the building was enlarged as steam engines got larger and then over the years this side of the building was removed. It was the oldest and smallest. So only half of the building remains today. country's first ever presidentary [Music] cyclist. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] think I've ever been to a train museum like this? No. Well, just being in a roundhouse is unique. Yeah. [Music] This is the maintenance area of the roundhouse. The pit would be right there and they would be able to go underneath and service the the cars and engines, repair replace the brakes and uh do whatever other service might be needed. Maybe an engine overhaul or something would be done here. This section of the uh roundhouse was the uh locker room and lavatory for the colored shop. Then back then they had separate facilities for white and colored people. This section of the roundhouse is where they had the drop table. Now the drop table allowed them to lift the locomotive up and remove the wheels and axles for repair. It looks like that drop table in that area is still being used today to refurbish some of these old engine engines. This building is the blacksmith shop. where a lot of the parts were formed to maintain the trains. Now, they had a series of blacksmiths working in here that would forge iron parts and or shape iron parts and over here they had um areas where they could do brass and bronze parts for bearings and such. Everything on the trains had to be pretty much manufactured right here to keep them running. So, what did you think of the Savannah Railroad Museum? Oh, it was just okay. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing nothing spectacular. Well, if he had more time, maybe. Yeah. If he had more time to kind of look around and take the train ride. Yeah. Yeah, that definitely would have been worth it to get get on the little train ride and do that. I'm sure we kind of cut it short because we've only got a certain amount of time today to do everything and we put a cut off point in our time there to uh leave. But it was kind of neat. I've never seen a roundhouse in action like that before. No, that's true. So, that was neat to see that. Yeah. I mean, it's not real big. Well, we saw it's not real big. Yeah. But I think we saw most of it. Do you? Yeah. Okay. Well, you had the map. I didn't. Yeah. You know, the the buildings and you know in the um the roundhouse there, right? Yeah. Okay. Um now, Taylor Square is the only square in the city named after a woman. That's also the only square in the city named after an Africanamean. Her name was Miss Susie King Taylor. Now, Susie King Taylor followed her husband. His name was Edward King. He was a non-commissioned African-American officer in the Union forces. She followed his regimen for a full three years and served as aist as well as a nurse in that regiment. Now, what I admire about Miss Susie King Taylor is her bravery. And now we are coming up to stop number eight. If you are interested, I ask that you please wait until I open my doors before you stand up to exit. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] This is the [Music] heat. Our [Music] tour included tickets to America's only prohibition museum which is located in the market square in downtown Savannah. Heat. Heat. [Music] your body of the American [Music] spend that much less [Music] gain. Please stand [Music] [Applause] [Music] Try another [Music] [Applause] happy birthday. [Music] [Applause] [Music] He's the architect of prohibition plane dealer. This lady's kiri nation kier nation [Music] prohibition drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places and does not cure it or even diminish it. Mark Twain. [Music] So when prohibition passed, John Barry Corin a fictitious character that symbolized the alcohol indulgence was laid to rest by both the wets and the dries. While the wets held tongue and chief's fumery, halls and mock burials, the dry staged mass rallies and threw parties to celebrate their success. For myself, if Booze ever comes back to the United States, I'm going I'm going through with a manufacturing that I wouldn't be interested in. Putting automobiles into the hands of a generation of soggy would drink. Well, good thing they didn't do that. That's really what it what it came down to is, you know, money. Yeah. And they losing all that tax income. Does anyone really believe it is the function of government to regulate the habits and appetites of the people rather than provide them with jobs? The Danish times foreign vessel vessels are out carry our tourist trade all getting American dollars. Coalition is ruining our merchant marines. 600 American vessels are tied to the docks. 400,000 American soldiers fought for liberty and rewarded with poor Christian outcome to Congress who cared for the soldiers are take care of ourselves. Prohibition started the moonshine business where farmers made whiskey at night in the woods. Prohibition says you can't make alcohol. No way. legal. All the citizen made Walgreens and they had prescription whiskey. At the start of prohibition, they had a single drugstore in 1901. By the end of prohibition, they had 525. So, pro prohibition brought upon the gangsters, especially Alapone and Bugsy Moren. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] It's like an extra 11 bucks. Yeah. [Music] Okay. [Music] [Music] You're breathing. [Music] [Music] Moon shiners put more time, energy, and thought, and love into their cars than any racers will. Lose on the track and you go home. Lose with a load of whiskey, you go to jail. Junior Johnson, Nasser. The unrest trainer car extra cargo in the trunk. [Music] No, St. Patrick's Day is the biggest holiday that we celebrate here in uh Savannah. Now, we are open. Oldtown Charlie is open every single day of the year, y'all. Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, Easter, we open every day except St. Patrick's Day. I told my mama that. I was like, "Girl, we closed on St. Patrick's Day." She was like, "Why? St. Patrick's Day is really, really big here." And I promise if we had somewhere to go, meaning if the streets weren't all blocked off, we probably will be open on St. Patrick's Day, too. But when I tell y'all the streets are all blocked off on St. Patrick's Day. In fact, in 2023, we uh celebrated our centennial. We had our centennial parade, y'all. It was over 2 million people here in this city. Oh my goodness. 2 million. Now, our population is about 140,000. Can y'all imagine 2 million people in this city of Savannah? I stay in the house. We were shoulder to shoulder, y'all. [Music] Now over here to the left of us, like I said, you'll see a white building with a white with the white flags in front of it. That's actually where the committee of St. Patrick's Day they hold their meeting. Now, we start about a week early. We call it St. Practice Day. We first turn the fountain on forite green. Then we turn all the food green. Then all the beer gets turned green. child. After a while, your face going to be green from eating all that green food and you not going to remember nothing cuz you going to be real drunk. Drunk. Drunk from drinking all that beer. Well, we finished our Charlie tour and it was exceptional. We got off and um toured the Prohibition Museum, which was very interesting. We would recommend that. And it's about a $20 per person upcharge on the tour on the ticket. We also got off and did the railroad museum. Yep. And that was Yeah. Not sure if that's worth it. It was that that was $18. And we only had like a half hour or so to do it. There was probably a little bit more there that we probably could have done. I don't know if it would justify us liking it that much more or not, but there was some things on there were kind of cool. I mean, seeing the the working turntable was neat, but I don't know if it justified $18, right? And uh the tour on the whole was very fascinating. Uh Savannah is a very interesting city, and the tour guides that we had were were great. I mean, the information that they um you know, that they uh shared with us was, you know, very informative. We got to see a lot. Yeah. They were very humorous, too. Yes. Yes. And it was an on andoff tour. So, um, you know, you could do it at your own pace. I wouldn't recommend a lot of stops if you're only going to do it one day cuz you do it only goes till 5:00. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So, we went from 10:00. We had to end at 4 because we have to take a shuttle back to the campground, right? So, we ended a little bit early and it really only allowed us maybe a half hour to 45 minutes at each stop and we got three stops in. So, yeah, there's a a lot of restaurants, places to eat, um a lot of gift shops that you can explore and uh yeah, it's you know, part of it is typical touristy, but it is very informative and Savannah is really a very pretty city. a lot of uh big old houses and uh you know it's it's very historic. Yeah. So yeah, we really enjoyed it. Yeah. Now the cost of the tour is $50 for adults and I think 20 for children under a certain age. I don't know the age. We we didn't qualify for that. No. And they don't have seniors. So it was Right. They didn't have a senior. But they do offer they you can pick up a coupon that will save you $5 per person which we had. The campground supplied that. And it also included our transportation here which was uh complimentary from the campground. So we didn't have to drive into town or anything either which was I think a savings and we're staying at Creek Fire Resort. Right. And that was and I think they go from other places too cuz not everyone on the bus was from the same place. Right. So that was well worth it. Saves us the time of, you know, having to drive into the city, finding a place to park, remember where you parked after you finish walking around and uh Yeah. So yeah, that will and I think parking could be difficult in a lot of downtown areas, right? Well, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a big thumbs up and if you haven't already, we would appreciate if you would subscribe to our channel for travels. Hit that bell for notifications. We post videos on a weekly basis. Love to have you follow along. And leave us a comment. Have you toured um downtown Savannah? Have you taken one of the bus tours or one of the trolley tours in one of the cities that they offer it? Let us know if you have and give us your thoughts. Yeah. And how was it? Yeah. So until next time, we'll see everybody down the road. Bye everybody. Bye.