Archeological Survey of a Portion of Skidaway Road, Savannah, Georgia

An archeological survey in advance of proposed widening of Skidaway Road was conducted on April 1 and 2, 1997. The area of potential effect for the project is defmed as a swath 9 m (30 ft) wide on both sides of the road for a distance of 6.6 km (4.1 mi), between Victory Drive and Bakers Crossing. The project area is heavily developed with residential, public and commercial buildings. Only about 1.1 kin in Bacon Park is relatively undisturbed. The locations of former structures shown on nineteenth and early twentieth century maps that could have been in the project corridor were targeted for survey, but all of these had been obliterated and replaced with modern development, mostly commercial buildings. The eight standing historic structures and one district were also targeted for survey, but these occupied, maintained, landscaped properties were clearly visible and had no archeological potential within the proposed project area. The final focus of the survey was on undeveloped portions of the project area, mainly in Bacon Park. Here site 9CH870, a sparse scatter of late nineteenth to early twentieth century glass and nails was encountered immediately adjacent to Skidaway Road. Since there were no other indicators of a house or structure existing at this location, and since the material was limited to the strip next to the road, we believe this is probably refuse. We recommend site 9CH870 as not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The location of a cemetery marked on an 1897 map was investigated. Half of the area plotted on the 1897 map is currently the well-defined Oakgrove Cemetery, located adjacent to the Wilmington Missionary Baptist Church, which was established in 1856. This cemetery has been designated archeological site 9CH871. We see no archeological research potential at the cemetery, and therefore recommend it as not eligible to the National Register under criterion d. It has been reviewed independently (The Jaeger Company 1997) and found not eligible under the other criteria as well. The southern half of the plotted cemetery is currently the playground of Myers Middle School. Visual inspection of this area and examination of other, later maps indicates that the cemetery never extended further south than it does today. However, there is a slight chance that it did, and that some graves could be present in the Myers School lot. We recommend that the well-defined Oakgrove Cemetery be entirely avoided by the widening project, along with the adjoining Myers Middle School lot, which has a remote possibility of containing another portion of the cemetery.