Greenville’s History: A city built by immigrants
The storefronts, the churches, the neighborhoods and the downtown we brag about were built by people who came here from somewhere else, and they built them while being told they did not belong.
History
221 posts
Greenville’s History: Hattie Logan Duckett and the Phillis Wheatley Center
The new Phillis Wheatley Center opened at 121 Broad Street in 1924, in the heart of Greenville’s Black business district.
Musgrove Mill State Historic Site reopens with new interactive displays
The new digital displays offer first-person perspectives on the Battle of Musgrove Mill and the Revolutionary War era.
Greenville’s History: What Camp Sevier left behind
Wartime demand for cloth made the mills more profitable, and Greenville emerged more tied to textiles than before.
Greenville’s History: Josh White and his two Greenvilles
By the 1940s, White sang before national audiences about poverty, lynching, Jim Crow and the treatment of Black soldiers.
Greenville’s History: The 1907 Kelsey and Guild Plan, the first vision of a beautiful city
By Russell Stall Editor’s note: This is part of a continuing series of columns, stories and photos by Greenville County Historical Society examining the history of Greenville and the Upstate. In…
Greenville’s History: Shoeless Joe Jackson, the hero of Brandon Mill
Jackson grew up in that village and worked in the mill as a child.
Greenville’s History: Mill villages and the world the mills controlled
At first glance, mill villages built in Greenville County in the late-19th and early-20th centuries seemed like a good arrangement for working families.
Greenville’s History: How Upstate SC became the ‘Textile Capital of the World’
In a single generation, Greenville changed from a small courthouse town surrounded by struggling farms into one of the busiest textile centers in the South.
Greenville’s History: The women who gave the city its voice
Women built Greenville's civic life from the margins, organizing schools, literary societies, clubs and church networks.
Statue of Revolutionary War heroine Dicey Langston unveiled in Travelers Rest
A statue commemorating Revolutionary War hero Dicey Langston was unveiled in Travelers Rest June 26.
Greenville’s History: The Civil War and the city’s first great reinvention
The Civil War did more than just interrupt Greenville's progress.
Greenville’s History: Benjamin Perry and the fight against secession
Benjamin Franklin Perry may be Greenville’s most complicated Civil War-era political figure.
Greenville’s History: Faith, education and the world Furman University inherited
Furman was founded in 1826 as the Furman Academy and Theological Institution, created by the South Carolina Baptist Convention to train ministers and promote Baptist education.
Greenville’s History: A retreat from the Lowcountry
Long before Greenville earned its reputation as an award-winning destination, it served as a summer refuge for wealthy Lowcountry families fleeing the heat and disease of coastal South Carolina.