Wilson Cook has been a prominent member of the Greenville County Republican Party after the American Civil War and served at the State House from 1868 to 1870. The indigenous of NC has been brought to Greenville by Vardry McBee like a slave, but worked after hours and rescued a substantial amount. Cook was also a founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Greenville.
The county seat was originally named Pleasantburg, in 1831 that the name has been changed into Greenville.
Gassaway Mansion – Improving 1925 – Greenville, South Carolina
The town of Greenville had its source in the Indian trading channel and mill created between 1760 and 1770 from Richard Pearis at Reedy River Falls.
In 1797, Lemual James Alston, a prominent resident, offered a site for the court house in Greenville County. Alston marked off 400 acres round the court house plat, laying a proposed village, Pleasantburg. The newest citizens, nevertheless, always referred to it as Greenville. The lots did not sell as expected since most settlers were interested in agricultural territory. Alston, disappointed in his real estate project and humiliated within a political defeat, sold 11,028 acres to Vardry McBee in 1815 and left Greenville.
Through McBee’s progressive efforts, the tiny town of Greenville became a trading centre for surrounding counties. Greenville also became known as a spa for its lowcountry individuals escaping the malaria and humidity of their coastal regions.
Two especially superb residential buildings remain from early twentieth century; the Earle Town House, ca. 1826, and Whitehall, ca. 1813. Both of those properties are recorded on the National Register and therefore are located within the bounds of this Colonel Elias Earle Historic District.
Throughout the early nineteenth century, Greenville grew steadily and slowly and by the 1850s Greenville had become a recognized town. Back in 1850, Greenville’s population was three times a 1834 count of 500. These jarring occasions brought Furman University into Greenville, whose campus has been assembled from the Italian Villa style. In 1853, the town received its first railway, the Greenville & Columbia Railroad. The Greenville Female College was established in Greenville in 1855 and also the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary came in 1859. By the late 1850s, Greenville had the South’s biggest carriage and noodle plant employing about eighty workers.
Until the American Civil War, the design at Greenville represented its smalltown appearance and contains frame houses and masonry churches and stores with just a couple of brick homes on Main Street. Typical of southern antebellum architecture, many of those substantial frame houses were built along the I-house plan together with central hallways along with flanking parlors. The Josiah Kilgore house, constructed ca. 1838 is to the National Register (NR); Cherrydale, ca. 1840 (NR); along with Holly Hill, respectively ca. 1850 have enormous porticos and Greek Revival elements. Even though the Fountain Fox Beattie House, 1834 (NR) and also the T. Q. Donaldson House, 1863 (NR) have Italianate influences. These structures represent probably the very sophisticated residential architectural design job staying in Greenville from the antebellum period.
Christ Church, 1852 (NR) and also the First Baptist Church, 1856 (NR), are also excellent samples of mid-nineteenth century structure.
Even the post-Civil War period brought Greenville new challenges and a change in societal and financial prosperity. The city of Greenville immediately recovered by the anguish of this Civil War and Reconstruction. The city got its next railroad in 1872, the Richmond & Danville Railroad; and the 1870s also saw the arrival of Greenville’s leading firm, the cotton textile industry.
After several years of demonstrative victory, these experimental mills demonstrated that Greenville would produce quality cloth having its good water supply and inexpensive labour. Other organizations followed suit and from 1894 eight cotton mills were operating in Greenville County, the earliest being set in 1820 on the Enoree River. By 1902, this number had climbed to fourteen and the mills brought stability and prosperity to Greenville. Greenville evolved to some small city as new businesses were created in the downtown area.
After World War II, lasted massive industrial growth, with the expansion of both textile and allied companies, made the city the title of”Textile Center of the planet.”
Even the Huguenot Mill complex above the falls was a large area containing two to three story design structures together with Romanesque and Italianate architectural elements. A few of these buildings, now a part of this Reedy River Industrial Complex, are recorded on the National Register of Historic Places.
One other important mill complex over the city was Mills Mill, which began operation in 1894 and has been constructed in the Romanesque Revival style. Other notable buildings constructed at the turn of the century would be both the Cigar Factory, also a sizable four-story vernacular structure, and the Steam Power Plant, also a repaint masonry construction. The Cigar Factory will shortly be rehabilitated for offices and street-level shopping.
The growth in wealth and the establishment of a streetcar system formed new residential neighborhoods. The Hampton-Pinckney residential-area is your earliest intact neighborhood in Greenville. Subsequent to the Hampton-Pinckney area has been settled, another residential tract was being proposed and developed over Pettigru Street. The environs of the area represent the inhabitants’ recently obtained status and wealth from the affluence of their city and textile mills. Originally known as the”Boyce Lawn property” and located between East North Street and East Washington Street, this property was divided into smaller lots. The roads joining the lots were termed after college associates of their Furman Theological Seminary. Some other residential neighborhoods evolved during those years.