Two days after Barney’s last day in the office (November 11), we packed up the trailer and drove to the Savannah area to stay at Fort McAllister State Park in Richmond Hills for six days. The first day we drove to Savannah to tour the steam locomotive round house from the 1800s that’s located next to the visitors center. So interesting to learn more about steam locomotives and how they were repaired.
The Richmond Hills Visitor’s Center staff person suggested the Uptown Deli in the same building for lunch ; it was so good that we ate there three times that week.
Later that day we also drove a little north of Savannah to the Mighty Eighty Air Force Museum that displays all that the U.S. bombers did during WW2.
Richmond Hills is an interesting town. The history of the area goes from the Revolutionary War through the depression. Henry Ford and his wife discovered the area in the 1920s as he was looking for land to grow plants for his rubber tires and she wanted a winter home. At the town’s history center, we learned that his heart broke over the poverty in the area and lack of jobs. Ford seems like a man who wanted to make a mark on a place and change it forever.
Ford created numerous companies and, of course, the jobs that went with it, training the men to do the work that was needed for these jobs. For the children, he created schools for the boys and girls. The Blacks had their own schools that were just as good and also had excellent teachers because Ford did not want to tackle the issue of segregation. He just wanted to put people to work so they and he could make money. The boys learned skills that would help them support themselves as adults, and the girls learned homemaking skills that would help them make homes and raise children. He hired qualified teachers for all three groups, and since he provided housing and great salaries, he got some of the best teachers available. Since Ford himself loved to dance, the boys and girls had regularly scheduled dances. The schools were open in the evenings so fathers could come in and learn the hands-on skills that their sons were learning during the day.
The third morning in camp we had a flat tire, so got to spend the whole day in Savannah at a busy Tires Plus. Of course we had to buy all four tires. We had a great lunch at a diner a couple of blocks away, The Diner on Abercorn, and had lot of time to read our kindles.
Next we spent half a day at the J F Gregory City Park and loved the trails. Gregory was the general manager and superintendent for all of Henry Ford’s various operations. He oversaw the activities of the Richmond Hill Plantation and was known as a hard-working, no-nonsense manager, running the Ford operations with great efficiency and organization. No wonder he got a city park named after him!
While we didn’t spend a lot of time at our campsite, we did get to see some of the local wildlife.
