​Savannah is known for its good eating and history. So it is no surprise that Savannah has historic restaurants. One such place is the Crystal Beer Parlor. The historic building that houses the restaurant was originally a family grocery store called the Gerken Family Grocery. It was run by a prominent young Jewish man Julius Weitz. He lived with his parents and siblings above the store. But eventually they went into other enterprises and after a few short time owners [sometime in the thirties] it was sold to William ‘Blocko’ and Connie Manning.

The rumor was that Blocko used the restaurant not only to serve food but alcohol during Prohibition. Savannah was notorious for its speakeasies. It was said to be packed with people spitting in spittoons and smoking cigars and maybe even a little gambling. It was a rowdy gentlemen’s club with few women found on the premises.

As far as Blocko was concerned he spent time in the federal pen for bootlegging. Thus the suspicions of The Crystal Beer Parlor being a speakeasy. It is also said his cellmate was none other than a member of the notorious Al Capone gang. Yet another legend says Capone himself paid him a visit at the Crystal. Whatever the truth may be one can only assume by these legends the Crystal was one boisterous place during the Prohibition years.

 It is said The Crystal Beer Parlor was one of the first restaurants to serve alcohol after Prohibition was repealed. Of course this accomplishment would not have been difficult to accomplish if he already was selling alcohol during Prohibition.  

The restaurant known by some as “The Crystal” is Savannah’s second oldest restaurant at eighty-five years of age. The brick outside is common enough in Savannah. But once one enters the back door the charm of the place begins to take over. In the hall are photographs of the Crystal and Savannah’s history covering the wall. Some of the hanging objects are a large shot of the segregated waiting room inside the old Union Station, a snowball fight on Broughton Street in the early 1900s, and sheet music for Johnny Mercer’s “G.I. Jive.”  As one continues inside they find in the main dining room red leather booths and a bar from the thirties.  The Crystal aware of its history honors Monroe Whitlock and A.G. “Smitty” Smith, both of whom were servers for over 45 years. Pictures of the two men hang in the Monroe room named after Monroe Whitlock.

After the ownership tenure of Blocko the restaurant was in several hands and even closed in the early 21st century for a couple years before John Nichols, the Crystal’s current owner purchased it. As a youth he and his father were frequent customers. “My father would bring me here to pick up a takeout order when I was very young,” says Nichols. “He always came out with that big brown paper bag with grease stains on it and I’d say, ‘We’re gonna eat good tonight!’

When he saw that the Crystal had been closed it felt like a part of his childhood was being taken from him. So he decided to buy the place and reopen it. The Crystal Beer Parlor has been reopened ever since for business. This year is marks eighty-five years of one of Savannah’s great restaurants.  

​

In the old days River Street was a rough place to be. The respectable only went there if they had business and only during the day time. It was a place with fights, prostitution, drunkenness, and gambling. 

And if you were caught unawares kidnapping. William O. Golding was eight years old when he was on River Street and absconded to work on a ship. In a letter he wrote in his adult life, he and his cousin passed a ship called the Wandering Jew on River Street. He heard Captain William Potter ask his wife, Polly, to select one of the boys. She chose Golding, who was invited aboard and without his knowledge, the ship left Savannah Harbor. 

The kidnapping would become as much a life-giver as a life-taker. He would become a merchant seaman.  He traveled the world at a time when most Americans spent their entire lives within fifty miles of their places of birth. He was kidnapped in 1882 and would not see his home again until a visit in 1904. He finally returned to Savannah in his fifties. He was the epitome of a sailor by now, whose nickname was "Deep Sea.” But he was forced by sickness to live out the rest of his life in Savannah. He would never sail again.

But the sea never left him. The sailor’s life was filled with hard work and not much pay. But the life gave him what he called glorious experiences of seeing the world. When he was fifty-nine, Golding admitted in a letter that he still sailed in his dreams and met his cronies there to swap yarns.

Sometime in 1932 William O. Golding began to document his dreams and his cronies’ yarns through drawings while a patient at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Savannah. Between 1932 and 1939, he executed approximately sixty drawings. These drawing were from his memories of the ships on which he sailed and the ports he visited around the globe. 

One art critic says, ‘His ships are meticulously detailed, and the drawings often include specific information regarding captains or ports of origin. Port cities often appear similar at first glance, but careful observation reveals that Golding included distinctive topographical characteristics of the land.’ Margaret Stiles, the recreation director at the hospital and a member of the Savannah Art Club, was impressed with his works and worked to preserve them.

Stiles mounted his works and enabled them to be shown in various exhibits. His drawings were included in the exhibition Missing Pieces: Georgia Folk Art, 1770-1976, which traveled from the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta to the Telfair Museum of Art to the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia. In 2000 the Telfair Museum of Art organized a retrospective exhibition, Hard Knocks, Hardship, and a Lot of Experience: The Maritime Art of William O. Golding. The Morris Museum of Art in Augusta exhibited his work the following year in the show Maritime Memories.
​
Today his work is found in the permanent collections of the Georgia Museum of Art, the Morris Museum of Art, and the Telfair Museums. We do not know much about his life but he is recorded with his wife, Josephine, in the 1940 city directory. He died on August 25, 1943. He is part of the Savannah’s rich tradition of accomplished self- taught African American artists. 

​There have been two great evacuations of Savannah. The first was the British leaving after the Revolutionary War. Savannah residents were so happy to see the British depart that they started a holiday called Evacuation Day and even built a monument to commemorate the event. The holiday is no longer celebrated and the monument was destroyed in a wagon accident.

The second evacuation took place in lieu of General Sherman’s March to the Sea during the Civil War. Savannah was one of the leading Confederate cities because of its port, cotton, and international reputation. On January 31, 1861 secessionists seized Fort Pulaski from the Union government. The Fort had been built under the supervision of Lieutenant Robert E. Lee at the bequest of then President James Madison. The Fort was quickly restored to the Union side in a battle in December. At this point all ships entering or leaving were under Union supervision.

Although Union troops controlled access to the Atlantic Ocean they did not have control of the City of Savannah. The embargo would put severe stress on supplies and contact with the outside world. The city would stay Confederate until the faithful day when Sherman with his troops entered the city.
The second evacuation was the work of the Confederate troops leaving in haste before Sherman entered the city. They were under the command of Lt. General William Hardee. The leadership of Savannah decided to work with Sherman in order for him not to burn the city down as he had done with Atlanta and other places. Savannah had strong ties with Chicago, Boston, and New York leaders. Sherman also knew it would be helpful to have a port in the South on the Atlantic Ocean for the Union to use as necessary, so burning Savannah would not be a good military choice. It is also rumoured he had a mistress in Savannah and legend has it she talked him into not burning Savannah.
Hardee knew he must evacuate or he and his soldiers would become prisoners of war. Also the War was coming to an end but the end had not arrived yet and Hardee knew his troops might be needed
in another battle at another time.
​
So Hardee scuttled the CSS Georgia and burned the CSS Savannah. The CSS Georgia laid at the bottom of the Savannah River for more than a 100 years. She has been raised as part of the Port of Savannah deepening project. Hardee notified President Jefferson Davis of the evacuation of 9,089 troops from Savannah into Carolina soil. The different garrison troops surrounding Savanah had been brought into the city the night before and crossed the Savannah River via pontoon bridge on December 21. Hardee unlike Sherman would have no city to offer as a Christmas prize. He only had the retreating troops to offer.

Sherman and his troops entered Savannah during on the morning of December 22. Sherman returned to his old haunt from a previous visit to Savannah: the Pulaski House. A resident of the city, Charles Green, offered Sherman the use of his own home as a headquarters. The residence was the Green-Meldrim House which today is a National Historic Landmark. Sherman’s soldiers were impressed by the homes, monuments and statues of Savannah. One solider wrote home saying: “Savannah is a beautiful city — the finest I have seen in the South. Thank God that I am yet alive, and
permitted thus to end it.”

These many years later Sherman’s March to the Sea is remembered but the evacuation of Savannah’s Confederate troops is seldom mentioned. Maybe President Jefferson Davis was not as pleased as President Abraham Lincoln with his Christmas gift. 

​