The Signers Monument on Greene Street reads as one of Augusta's most dignified civic anchors, a fifty‑foot granite obelisk standing directly in front of the Augusta Municipal Center and carrying the quiet weight of Georgia's Revolutionary history.
Built in 1848, and set in front of what was then the Augusta City Hall, the monument rises from a twelve‑foot square base and tapers upward with the clean, restrained geometry that nineteenth century designers favored, its southern face marked by a marble panel bearing the Georgia coat of arms and the names of Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton. Two of those men, Hall and Walton, are interred beneath the monument, their remains brought here when Augusta chose to honor the Georgians who had risked their lives, fortunes, and reputations by signing what was, in 1776, a treasonous declaration that they had had enough of British rule.
The opening line of that document still captures the audacity of their choice: 'When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...' and standing before the obelisk, with Greene Street stretching out in both directions, you feel how deliberately Augusta tied its own civic identity to that national moment.
[Review 222 of 2026 - 923 in Georgia - 25411 overall] read more
