The Historic Effingham Society’s Living History Site is hoping to add to its collection and exhibits, and it’s becoming an increasingly popular destination, Springfield City Council members learned.

Richard Loper of the HES asked city council to help with moving a fence at the Living History Site and also to remove stumps there.
“We are here to request as much help as the city can give,” he said.

Loper said an estimate, done in July, of the work pegged the cost at $1,600.

“It’s a good bit of work,” he said.

Council member Kenny Usher moved to have $800 for the fencing project extended to the HES out of the special events fund, and the other council members backed the motion.

“What they are doing is important to our city,” he said. "We’re tied to the success down there."

Loper said the HES has a couple of projects for which it needs to move the fence and it will allow for two gates to the site. They also have cut down two trees near the old Blandford depot that has been restored on the site, and the HES wants to bring in a small rail on which to put a flat car.

The HES has had a record number of visitors to the site, Loper said.

“They’ve been from Belgium, France and all up and down the east coast,” he told council members. “We feel like we’ve got something really good going on. We’ve got a lot of ideas.”

Loper added they would like to put in a one-room school and make room for a permanent moonshine still.

“We would love to have a botanical gardens and a raised walkway down there one day,” he said.

The city council also accepted a donation of 19 acres of land off Ebenezer Creek, near Tommy Long Landing, from the Georgia Conservancy.

“We feel Ebenezer (Creek) is one of the best resources Effingham County has,” Springfield City Manager Brett Bennett said. “And this is a way to capitalize on that resource, for the city and Effingham.”

Bennett said the city’s work on grant applications for the Springfield-Ebenezer greenway led to the Conservancy reaching out to Springfield.

“This goes again to building relationships,” he said. “We have worked with some people from the state through the years on various grants for preserving the greenway all the way to Ebenezer. We developed the relationship and have a good working relationship with the state and the Conservancy.

“The Conservancy supports it and because of that relationship, I believe we’ll be called upon in similar situations.”