Savannah is a true Southern Belle, both coy and mysterious. Founded by James Oglethorpe in 1733, the city was laid out in a grid or squares on a 40-foot bluff overlooking the river of the same name. This was Georgia's First City, a crown she wears proudly to this day.

Originally founded to provide an alternative to debtors' prisons in England, the colony's charter reverted to the crown in 1752. When laws were changed to allow slavery, plantations grew up and prospered. Although Savannah supported the Revolution, the British held the city under siege from 1778 until the war's end. She suffered a similar fate during the Civil War, being captured early on by Northern troops. On Christmas Eve, 1864, General Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln saying, "I beg to present you as a Christmas Gift, the City of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; and also about 25,000 bales of Cotton."

It was in Savannah that cotton production became a viable cash crop: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin at Mulberry Grove, a Savannah plantation. It was also here that the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic was built - the S.S. Savannah. She boasts other firsts, as well: first to export silk from North America (1735); first English hymnal in the US (1736) and the first Sunday School classes, both by John Wesley, who later founded the Methodist Church; its first horse race was in 1740; the first import-export business of the colony was founded here in 1755; the first hospital for negroes in the US was the Georgia Infirmary (1832); the State of Georgia's oldest school (Massie School) in continuous operation (1856); the first use of rifled cannons in modern warfare (1862); the first art museum in the Southeast (Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences) and the first building in the nation erected entirely over a public thoroughfare, using the principle of air-rights (Savannah Cotton Exchange), both in 1886; the first auto-combination chemical wagon fire engine (1911); the world's first nuclear merchant ship (1962); and the first garden for the blind in the Southeastern US (1963). This is where the Girl Scouts were founded in 1912, by Savannah native Juliette Gordon Low.

This is one lady that delights in sharing her secrets. Y'all come on by now, ya hear?