"I went myself to view the Savannah River. I fixed upon a healthy situate. The river here forms a half-moon, along the south side of which the banks are almost forty feet high and on the top flat, which they call a bluff. Ships that draw twelve-foot water can ride within ten yards of the bank."

—James Oglethorpe (First letter to the Colony of Georgia Trustees)

Eugene Kelly and The Thomas Gamble Building on East Bay

In 1877, the Thomas Gamble Building above the Savannah River bluff on East Bay replaced the Eugene Kelly Store that a fire destroyed in 1869. Thomas Gamble served as Mayor of Savannah in the 1930s and 1940s. City officials then renamed the building to honor Mayor Gamble when he died in 1945.

In reflecting upon his service, Gamble believed his most significant contribution to the Savannah community was establishing the Armstrong Junior College in 1935 during the Depression. Armstrong College later became a four-year educational institution and is now part of Georgia Southern University.

Eugene Kelly was a prominent Irish-born merchant and banker who followed the California Gold Rush West, returned East a wealthy man, and was later involved in building the Panama Canal. He founded the Southern Bank of Georgia in 1870.

To reach the entrance of the seven-story 40,000-square-foot Thomas Gamble Building, a visitor must cross over Factor's Walk (see PFS-120). The building served as an essential annex to City Hall (see PFS-10) over much of the past eight decades. 

The once-bustling building has been closed and under close study for restoration for its potential renewed mission in recent years. The Covid-pandemic slowed its progress, but the City of Savannah will again likely locate various governmental offices in the Thomas Gamble Building after a proper renovation and restoration.

About 15-years ago, the City of Savannah Research Library and Municipal Archives secured an in-depth study of the Thomas Gamble Building. Luciana Spracher of Bricks & Bones Historical Research completed the entire property and architectural history of what became legally known as Wharf Lot #9.

The history began with Captain Nicholas Horton transferring the property to William Moore in July 1766. In Savannah, the property carried the name of Moore's Wharf for the next one hundred years.

Over the subsequent two centuries, following the property transfer from Captain Horton, the legal location of the property the Thomas Gamble Building sits upon changed hands many times: from father to son, from husband to widow, even from grandfather to granddaughter. Once, in 1793, the estate of General Nathaniel Green (see PFS-102) leased part of the property. 

In a couple of instances, a court would order the property seized to satisfy debts owed. In 1824, a fire destroyed several buildings on the Savannah waterfront. After a court judgment, the Bank of the United States seized and then sold Wharf Lott #9 at auction to satisfy debtors. 

Gazaway Bugg Lamar, a Confederate gun-runner during the Civil War and father to Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar (see PFS-76), purchased the property in 1860. One of the richest men in Georgia, Gazaway Lamar launched the nation's first iron-hulled steamship, the S.S. John Randolph, in the Savannah River in 1834. 

Eugene Kelly's estate sold The Thomas Gamble Building in 1907. And finally, in 1943, the City of Savannah, its current owner, purchased the building in the middle of the Second World War.