Fort Screven Historic District, Tybee Island

Georgia's mouth to the sea has needed a guardian since Oglethorpe first looked north at Tybee Island and recognized what the position meant. Fort Screven answered that call — commissioned in 1898, named for a brigadier general killed in the American Revolution, and built on the Endicott System of coastal defense that the threat of war with Spain accelerated. The fort served until the end of World War II. Battery Garland, one of the surviving concrete-and-steel emplacements, now houses the Tybee Island Museum. Go for the batteries; stay for Officer's Row.