Included with GeorgiaRoam+Savannah State University Campus Tour
Georgia's oldest public HBCU, where the oaks meet the marsh
Self-guided walking tour in Savannah · 1.5 mi · walking · ~1h 15m · 6 stops
The Tour
Chartered on November 26, 1890 as the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youths, Savannah State University is the oldest public historically Black college in Georgia. On a 201-acre tract of moss-draped live oaks and tidal salt marsh minutes from downtown Savannah, students and faculty literally built the early campus by hand. This walk carries you from the athletics gateway on the west through the student-built historic core to the marsh edge that gives SSU its soul.
Savannah State University Campus Tour is a self-guided walking tour of Savannah, built around its campus side. It's one of 20 Georgia Roam tours in Savannah — each a different route through the city, on your own schedule.
The walk covers 6 stops over about 1.5 miles and roughly 1 hour 15 min, entirely at your own pace. Each stop's story unlocks on your phone the moment you arrive — GPS-triggered, hands-free, no guide and no tour group to keep up with.
What you'll see
Savannah State's campus is where Georgia's public higher education for Black students began, and this walk shows how that history sits among live oaks and salt marsh. The centerpiece is Hill Hall, a Classical Revival building that students raised by hand at the turn of the 20th century. Its story includes a presidential visit, soldiers barracked there during World War I, a fire and a long restoration. Close by, a state historical marker tells how founding president Richard R. Wright Sr. answered a Union general as a boy: "tell them we are rising."
The walk also passes through a ring of oaks at the old academic core and a 1930s brick gymnasium built partly with New Deal money. You'll also see the modern arena where the Tigers play basketball today. Together they show how an industrial college of the 1890s grew into a university without losing its original layout.
Where the campus meets the marsh you reach the home of the university's marine science program. There the tide, the cordgrass and the long view toward Wassaw Sound explain why this campus feels unlike any other in the state. Plan on about 1.5 miles of easy walking. Mornings and late afternoons are cooler and give the best light over the marsh, and fall Saturdays bring homecoming crowds and the marching band. The Georgia Roam app plays each stop's story as you arrive.
Georgia
