Editor’s note: This column by Russell Stahl, executive director of the Greenville County Historical Society, is the first in a continuing series of columns, stories and photos in the Greenville Journal examining the history of Greenville and the Upstate.
It is pretty obvious. Greenville County is changing rapidly. Today, Greenville hardly resembles the city it was 20 or 30 years ago. Every week, newcomers arrive who have never heard of the Tommy Wyche, the Reedy River, Sterling High School, or the textile mill villages that once defined entire communities. At times like this, understanding the past becomes essential and important.
That’s why the Greenville Journal and the Greenville County Historical Society are boldly introducing a year-long, week-by-week look at Greenville County’s history. The series begins with a journey through Greenville’s history – with the Cherokee homelands and frontier settlements and continues through the textile era, the civil rights movement, and the ongoing pressures shaping the county and its towns and cities. This is a bold endeavor. But if Greenville wants to remain one of the most livable places in America, we must understand what brought us here.
This is not about nostalgia. It is applied history. Applied history means knowing how a place’s past helps us ask better questions about its future. Applied history uses past decisions to better inform current ones. Think about the roads you drive, the neighborhoods you know, the schools your children attend, the parks where you spend a Sunday afternoon. None of that happened by accident. They are a result of generational choices: land, labor, race, investment, and power. Those choices shaped the Greenville we inherited and still shape us today.
You don’t have to be born here to join this story about Greenville. If you live in Greenville now, you are part of our history. History isn’t just for those with deep roots, but for anyone who wants to understand the place they call home.
Over the next year, we will celebrate what merits celebration while voicing harder truths where honesty requires. A place that remembers only its triumphs does not know itself. Greenville County’s history is still being written. Decisions made now will be someone else’s inheritance.
These articles invite you to know this place more fully, tell its story more honestly and use what we learn to help shape what comes next. If something resonates with you this year, take action. Add your story.
I encourage you to join the Greenville County Historical Society on April 18 at 11 a.m. for the ribbon-cutting of our new home at 644 E. Washington St. in downtown Greenville. More information is available at GCHS_Open_House.eventbrite.com.
Up next: How to read the city. An introduction to seeing streets, buildings, rivers, neighborhoods and absences as evidence of the past.
Russell Stall is a Greenville native, former at-large Greenville City Council member, and certified city planner. He serves as executive director of the Greenville County Historical Society, and is a faculty member in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Clemson University.
