White arrows denote location of the Square within the photo.
Queen Square History
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OLD CITY HALL IN QUEEN SQUARE. Left: Courtesy Golden Isles Arts & Humanities Association. Right: Signature Squares Archives.
Queen Square, named in honor of the queens of England, is the only true square in Brunswick located within the downtown commercial district. Other smaller, so-called “pocket parks,” such as Jekyll
and Machen
Squares, were originally named “Place” and were not considered true squares until the names changed on city maps in the 1930s. Queen Square was designed as four quadrants, similar to King Square.
The square contains one of Brunswick’s most recognizable landmarks, Historic City Hall. The stately Richardson-Romanesque building is still in use today for municipal court, Commission meetings, as home to the Downtown Development Authority
offices, and a venue for some of the city’s most elegant celebrations and receptions. The northwest and southwest quarters of the square have been renovated, and work is ongoing in the northeastern quadrant.
Queen Square Northwest
A Place for Business
Queen Square has always been used for commercial purposes, rather than as a recreational green space. The earliest recorded discussion of civic use was in 1839, when the City Commission considered building a jail in the square. In 1857, the commission allowed a city market to be built in Queen Square, which operated in that location until 1875. In 1870, a jail and jail keeper’s residence were built in the square as well.
After the Civil War, business and travel began to flourish once again. Queen Square was an ideal location for commerce in the growing city, with room to expand near the docks and other downtown businesses.
Construction of a new Market House was well underway when a nationwide financial crisis in 1892 forced the city to abandon the project. The forlorn remnants of the structure can be seen in the foreground, below, covered in snow in a rare winter storm.
OVERLOOKING QUEEN SQUARE NORTHWEST AND NEWCASTLE STREET FROM OLD CITY HALL AFTER A RARE WINTER SNOW. Courtesy Downtown Development Authority collection.
Community Leader
Columbia Downing Jr. left his Ohio home in 1862 at 17 to become a bugler in the Union Army. It is unlikely that he could have imagined at that tender age that he would fall in love with the South, particularly Brunswick, Georgia. But that is exactly what happened.
Colonel Downing moved to Brunswick in 1881 to open a naval products storehouse for Standard Oil and decided to put down roots here. He purchased the company, then added a wholesale grocery and provisions operation to his holdings. Gifted with business talent, Downing enjoyed success in every enterprise he touched. When the First National Bank of Brunswick was organized in February 1884, he became its first president.
THE DOWNING COMPANY. Courtesy Vanishing Georgia Collection.
DOWNING COMPANY NAVAL STORES DOCKS. Courtesy Vanishing Georgia Collection.
MONUMENT TO COL. DOWNING IN QUEEN SQUARE NORTHWEST. Courtesy Troup Nightingale, Southeastern Photography.
The Bell That Traveled
A hardworking brass bell on display in Queen Square Northwest has journeyed a long way to arrive in its place of honor. It was inscribed in 1850 by its maker, John Benson, in New York. It was first used at Cannon’s Point on St. Simons Island. When the War Between the States began in 1861, a call went out to Confederate states to gather up all bronze items to be melted down and reused in the manufacture of artillery. The bell from Cannon’s Point, along with the bells from downtown Brunswick churches, was shipped to a foundry in Macon, Georgia.
The reason why the bells from Brunswick were never melted down is still a mystery. After the war, Major James T. Blaine journeyed to Macon, located all the city’s bells and arranged to have them shipped back home. The bell from Cannon’s Point was installed in the city’s marketplace on Queen Square, where it rang out arrivals of fresh meats and produce. Its next assignment was to raise the alarm when needed from the tower of the fire station across Newcastle Street from City Hall, in the southeast quadrant of the square. Eventually, it was sent to nearby Palmetto Cemetery to be used to alert visitors of the approach of closing time. The next part of its journey took it to the front porch of the Welcome Center that greeted visitors at the mainland end of the St. Simons Causeway. When the turn lanes at that intersection were widened in 2013, the facility was closed and the bell was sent to storage to wait until it was installed in Queen Square, its rightful home, in 2019.
THE BELL AT QUEEN SQUARE.
Queen Square Southwest
An Architectural Treasure
As Brunswick grew in the 1880s, so did its need for public buildings. Over that decade, city fathers successfully petitioned the Georgia Legislature for permission to circumvent the city’s original charter restrictions and allow certain civic buildings to be established in Queen Square. Plans for a grand new City Hall, drawn by famed Savannah architect, Alfred Eichberg, were approved in 1889. A building contract was awarded to Anderson and Sharpe, in the amount of $33,000, in 1890. Shortly after the project started, a national economic collapse, the worst in the country’s history at that point in time, delayed its completion until 1893.
The Richardson-Romanesque style of Alfred Eichberg’s historic City Hall set the tone for architecture of other buildings in Brunswick. He also designed the National Bank of Brunswick building, which was located on the western half of Machen Square, and Temple Beth Tefilloh nearby on Egmont Street. Eichberg used red brick contrasting with rough-hewn granite or limestone, with many arches and colonnades incorporated in the façade of his buildings. Other structures in the downtown area followed suit with similar materials, which gave the city a unified appearance until the modernization movement in the mid-20th century.
OLD CITY HALL AT QUEEN SQUARE SOUTHWEST. Courtesy Golden Isles Arts & Humanities Association.
Face Lift
In 2003, a massive renovation of historic City Hall was completed. The project included replacing of the 5,000-pound clock tower spire, which stands 110 feet above the surface of Newcastle Street. Today, the elegant structure hosts receptions, balls and dinners as well as city court and commission functions.
Queen Square Northeast
Although there was no formal park or gathering area designated in this quadrant, citizens of Brunswick nonetheless found occasions to use parts of Queen Square for such special purposes as watching the parade announcing the arrival of the John Robinson’s Ten Big Shows circus in 1895. For many townspeople, this would have been their first opportunity to see a live elephant.
Crowds gathered along Queen square for the John Robinson’s Ten Big Shows circus parade, cir. 1895. Courtesy Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
Elephants were a part of the circus attraction along with three menageries, an aquarium and an aviary. Courtesy Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
The John Robinson Circus featured elaborately decorated wagons. Courtesy Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
EXPLORE THE GOOGLE STREET VIEW MAP.
Today, the northern half of Queen Square is used as community green space. There, visitors find a stone Celtic cross monument to colonial founder, General James Edward Oglethorpe. He was well known in England for his vigorous reform in 1729 of the country’s inhumane treatment of prisoners, many of whom were incarcerated for simple debts. His vision for the colony of Georgia was a fresh start for “the worthy poor,” offering them a chance to own their land and escape poverty at home. His policies were controversial when his petition to establish the colony was granted in 1732. One of the more contentious issues was slavery. Oglethorpe detested slavery, even to the point of challenging Britain’s entrenched practice of indentured servitude, and forbade it in Georgia. That policy was overturned in 1750, when slavery was officially permitted in the colony.
Oglethorpe’s plan for cities in the new colony included ample parks regularly spaced throughout each town. First used in the design for Savannah, Georgia, the so-called Oglethorpe Plan of balancing common areas with residences and businesses was used as a basis for the design for Brunswick as well.
DETAIL OF Celtic cross monument IN QUEEN SQUARE NORTHEAST. Courtesy Troup Nightingale, Southeastern Photography.
CAKE CREATED FOR BRUNSWICK'S SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN 2006. Signature Squares Archives.
Queen Square Southeast
Activity at the busy Port of Brunswick brought prosperity to the city in the late 19TH century. Courtesy Golden Isles Arts & Humanities Association.
For the Common Good
A coffeehouse and a greengrocer were built in the southeastern quadrant of Queen Square in the early 1870s. In 1872, the city realized it was forbidden by charter to lease city common areas to private enterprise. After that time, only public buildings were proposed for the square, but even that direction was controversial. In 1882, the former County Courthouse was moved out of Hanover Square
into the southeastern quadrant of Queen Square. The building housed the court, city hall and Masonic Lodge.
When the city attempted to establish other public buildings in Queen Square, citizens vigorously objected. Citing the city’s charter and challenging the city commission’s authority to appropriate common areas, Brunswick’s citizenry waged a war of words in the local newspaper, in protest of the proposed building plans. After they wrote that the people desired the square for its original use as a public park space, the city responded by passing a resolution to repurpose the former coffeehouse as a fire station. The plan satisfied the criteria for an escape clause in the charter that allowed the city to use the land for the common good in certain cases—including this one.
First Home for First Responders
Other plans for public structures on Queen Square, including a federal building and an opera house, were proposed and abandoned. Instead, a fire station was built on the southeast quadrant of the square. The volunteer Oceanic Fire Company #1 moved into their new headquarters on Queen Square in 1876. The transfer was accomplished with great fanfare, as the shining American LaFrance steam engine known as the Viola traveled on a horse-drawn wagon through the city streets, accompanied by the Brunswick Brass Band and the marching Brunswick Riflemen.
THE VOLUNTEER OCEANIC FIRE COMPANY #1, CIR. 1876. Courtesy Capt. Chuck Yeargin, Glynn County Fire Department.
CIR. 1884. Courtesy Capt. Chuck Yeargin, Glynn County Fire Department.
In 1884, a group of Brunswick citizens formed Mechanics Hook and Ladder Company No. 1. By 1890, the city enlarged the fire station and augmented its volunteer fire service with a paid squad. That timely decision to upgrade Brunswick’s fire protection became the difference between survival and annihilation for the city in 1896. A fire engulfed the warehouses full of turpentine, rosins and lumber at the Port of Brunswick, and spread rapidly. Over half of downtown businesses were destroyed, but the city’s brave firefighters managed to save the rest.
CIR. 1890. Courtesy Capt. Chuck Yeargin, Glynn County Fire Department.
IN 1896, A FIRE THAT BEGAN AT THE PORT WAREHOUSES QUICKLY SPREAD, DESTROYING OVER HALF OF DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES. Courtesy Golden Isles Arts & Humanities Association.
In 1914, the entire department was supplied with motorized apparatus, thereby ending the days of the horse-drawn fire wagon. A move to new headquarters on Gloucester Street in 1932 ended the Queen Square firehouse era, but the lifesaving legacy of Brunswick’s dedicated firefighters lives on.
CIR. 1919. Courtesy Capt. Chuck Yeargin, Glynn County Fire Department.
Squares History
