95 Fun Facts About Greenville SC

At the 2020 census, which of these South Carolina cities had more residents than Greenville?

North Charleston was one of five South Carolina cities ahead of Greenville in 2020, which ranked only sixth even though its metropolitan area was the largest in the state.

Union cavalry who raided Greenville in 1865 were hunting which fleeing Confederate leader?

Jefferson Davis had fled south from Richmond, and the cavalry on his trail looted homes and businesses in Greenville, the only action the town saw in the whole war.

Before colonists arrived, the land that became Greenville was the hunting ground of which Native nation?

The Cherokee hunted this land; in the 1777 Treaty of DeWitt's Corner they ceded nearly all their South Carolina territory, including present-day Greenville, to the state.

What was the village established in 1797 by Lemuel J. Alston called before it took the name Greenville?

Pleasantburg was the name Alston gave the village he laid out on his land in 1797; he later sold his 11,000 acres and left for Alabama, and the village took the county's name instead.

Who is called the 'father of Greenville' for giving land for its early churches and academies?

Vardry McBee bought most of today's downtown in 1815, gave land for its churches and academies, and championed the railroad from Columbia that finally reached Greenville in 1853.

Which university moved to Greenville from near Winnsboro in 1851?

Furman came to Greenville in 1851 after years near Winnsboro; its theology department broke away in 1859 to become the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which later left for Louisville.

Which nickname belongs to the mountainous north of Greenville County, long notorious for its moonshiners?

The Dark Corner, the remote hill country at the county's northern edge, kept to itself: through the 1800s it was a haven for moonshiners and for dissenters from the state's politics.

Which 1882 mill was restored as part of Greenville's Peace Center?

The Huguenot Mill, built in 1882 to weave plaids, ran on coal even though it stood beside a river; the Peace Center restored it a century later as offices and event space.

Which downtown hotel replaced Greenville's Mansion House in 1925?

The Westin Poinsett opened in 1925 as the Poinsett Hotel on the site of the 1824 Mansion House; shut in 1987 over fire-code violations, it stood empty for a decade before reopening in 2000.

An 1820 stone bridge near Greenville, thought to be South Carolina's oldest, may be the work of which Charleston-born architect?

Robert Mills, later architect of the Washington Monument, may have designed it, but the credit is unsettled; the bridge is named for Joel Poinsett, who headed the state's public works board as its road was built.

What exploded at Greenville's Ideal Laundry in 1946 in a deadly blast felt dozens of miles away?

Propane had replaced coal in the laundry's boilers only that month, partly to cut smoke; a worker spotted vapor escaping from the tank and the alarm was raised, but the gas ignited minutes later.

Bob Jones University moved to Greenville in 1947 from which city?

Cleveland, Tennessee, was the school's second home: Bob Jones College opened in Florida in 1927, moved in 1933 when the Depression nearly bankrupted it, and became a university on reaching Greenville in 1947.

Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport opened in 1962 near which town?

Greer sits midway between the two cities, which had competed with separate airports until businessmen Charles Daniel and Roger Milliken pushed for a shared one; the field now bears Milliken's name.

In 2024 GSP was South Carolina's third-busiest airport, behind Charleston and which other?

Myrtle Beach International, gateway to the Grand Strand's beaches, ranks second, so GSP, serving the state's largest metro area, comes only third behind it and Charleston.

Which tire maker moved its North American headquarters to Greenville in the 1980s?

Michelin built its first Greenville tire factory in 1975, and ten years later the French company moved its US headquarters there from New York.

Which BMW roadster went into production at the Spartanburg plant in 1995?

The Z3 followed the 318i sedans that opened BMW's Spartanburg plant in 1994, and James Bond drove one in GoldenEye the year production began.

Which BMW SUV, the company's first, went into production at Spartanburg in 1999?

The X5 began rolling out of Spartanburg in 1999 as BMW's first SUV, though the company pushed the label 'Sports Activity Vehicle' for it instead.

The former Donaldson Air Force Base, now a technology park, hosts production of which warplane?

F-16 Fighting Falcon production left Fort Worth, Texas, to make room for the F-35, and Lockheed Martin restarted the line in Greenville, where the first jets rolled out in 2023.

The Peace Center, opened in 1990, takes its name from what?

A local family who gave $10 million: the Peace family's gift helped pay for a center that rose among derelict riverside factory buildings, an old coach factory included.

Which mayonnaise brand was created in Greenville in 1917 by a woman selling sandwiches to soldiers?

Duke's began when Eugenia Duke sold sandwiches to soldiers training at Camp Sevier; they kept asking for the mayonnaise itself, so she bottled it, and in 1929 sold the recipe to the C.F. Sauer Company.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena opened in 1998 carrying the name of which grocery chain?

Bi-Lo, an Upstate grocery chain, bought the naming rights, so the arena opened in 1998 as the Bi-Lo Center; the name came down in 2013, and the chain itself disappeared in 2021.

Falls Park was founded in 1967 when which group reclaimed 26 acres of old mill land?

The Carolina Foothills Garden Club bought the land in 1967 and, working with the city, spent decades cleaning up the polluted river and its banks before the park's 2004 makeover.

What is structurally unusual about the Liberty Bridge in Falls Park?

Its cables are on one side only: a single suspension cable and two leaning towers hold the curved deck from the side away from the falls, leaving the view of the water clear.

Which structure hid Greenville's downtown waterfall for decades until the city tore it down?

The Camperdown Bridge carried traffic right over the falls until the city demolished it, which let Greenville build the Liberty Bridge and open up the view.

Who became mayor of Greenville in December 1995?

Knox White, a city councilman for a decade before, became mayor in December 1995 and went on to win eight terms, championing the Liberty Bridge and the Swamp Rabbit Trail along the way.

The Swamp Rabbit Trail follows the bed of which defunct railroad?

The Greenville & Northern Railway began in the 1880s as a line aimed at Knoxville that never got beyond northern Greenville County; trains stopped in 1998 and the county bought the roadbed.

The Swamp Rabbit Trail runs north from downtown Greenville to which town?

Travelers Rest sits where the old rail line ended; the county bought the disused track in 1999, and the trail laid on it has since been credited with turning the town into a thriving community.

The Greenville Drive's 2006 stadium replicates the dimensions of which major-league ballpark?

Fenway Park is copied at Fluor Field because the Drive is a Red Sox farm club: a 30-foot Green Monster in left (Boston's is 37), a manual scoreboard and a Pesky's Pole in right.

Which name for the team that became the Greenville Drive was vetoed by Major League Baseball?

'The Joes' would have honored Shoeless Joe Jackson, but Major League Baseball objected because of his lifetime ban after the 1919 Black Sox scandal; 'Drive' nods to the area's auto industry.

The Greenville Drive's mascot is a frog with what name?

Reedy Rip'it is the frog who works the crowd at Fluor Field, the Drive's home since 2006, a ballpark built in part with bricks reclaimed from local mills.

Shoeless Joe Jackson began his professional career in 1908 with which hometown club?

Greenville Spinners: Jackson signed in 1908, and Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics bought his contract that season. By his own account, batting in socks after new cleats blistered his feet earned him 'Shoeless'.

Why is the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum at 356 Field Street?

It matches his career batting average, .356, one of the highest in major-league history; Jackson's brick house was cut in half and trucked across town to the site in 2006, opening as a museum in 2008.

Greenville's ECHL hockey team, now the Swamp Rabbits, played under what name from 2010 to 2015?

The Johnstown Chiefs, an ECHL founding member from 1988, moved south in 2010 to become the Greenville Road Warriors, who were renamed the Swamp Rabbits in 2015.

Which former US midfielder became Greenville Triumph SC's first head coach in 2018?

John Harkes, a US midfielder at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, coached FC Cincinnati in 2016 before taking the Triumph job; he led them to the 2020 USL League One title.

Which of the two segregated parks merged into Unity Park in 2022 had served Black residents?

Mayberry Park served Black residents under segregation while neighboring Meadowbrook Park was whites-only; the 60-acre Unity Park joined the two sites along the Reedy River in 2022.

Greenville's ECHL hockey franchise began life as the Johnstown Chiefs, named after the team in which film?

Slap Shot was filmed in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, so fans voted to name their new team after its Charlestown Chiefs; the franchise moved south to Greenville in 2010.

Which Greenville-born civil rights leader was arrested in a 1960 sit-in at the city's whites-only library?

Jesse Jackson, born in Greenville in 1941, was one of the 'Greenville Eight' students arrested for disorderly conduct at the segregated main library on July 16, 1960; the city integrated its libraries that September.

Which future NBA MVP was born in Greenville in 1976?

Kevin Garnett, 'the Big Ticket', played three seasons at Mauldin High before finishing at Chicago's Farragut Academy and jumping straight to the NBA as the fifth pick of the 1995 draft.

Greenville-born physicist Charles Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for inventing which device?

The maser, which Townes built at Columbia University to amplify microwaves, led him and Arthur Schawlow to propose doing the same with light, the idea behind the laser.

Which Oscar-winning actress finished high school in Greenville and acted at the city's Little Theatre?

Joanne Woodward moved to Greenville as a teenager, studied drama at Louisiana State University and left for the New York stage; she won Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve and married Paul Newman.

Which R&B balladeer was a native of Greenville?

Peabo Bryson started out in his school years singing with a local group, Al Freeman and the Upsetters; his Disney duets 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'A Whole New World' later won him two Grammys.

Sitting on I-85, Greenville is roughly halfway between Charlotte and which other big city?

Atlanta lies about 145 miles southwest and Charlotte about 100 miles northeast; BMW insisted on a site right beside the same interstate for its Upstate plant.

Which peak northwest of Greenville is South Carolina's highest point?

Sassafras Mountain straddles the North Carolina line in Pickens County; trees hid the view from its top until the summit was cleared for an observation tower, which opened in 2019.

At the 2020 census, which county ranked second in population in South Carolina, behind Greenville County?

Richland, home of the state capital, Columbia, counted a little over 400,000 residents, so the county holding the seat of government trailed Greenville County by more than 100,000 people.

Which Amtrak long-distance train stops in Greenville on its way between New York and New Orleans?

The Crescent descends from the Southern Railway's Southern Crescent, which the railroad kept running itself until 1979, eight years after Amtrak took over most US passenger trains.

Paris Mountain State Park, built by the CCC in the 1930s, has which lake for swimming?

Lake Placid began as one of the reservoirs that supplied Greenville's drinking water; when the mountain became a state park, it gained a bathhouse and a swimming area instead.

The Greenville Zoo, opened in 1960, sits inside which city green space?

Cleveland Park has housed the Greenville Zoo since 1960, when it opened with mostly native animals such as bears, deer and bobcats; a dome for 26 monkeys followed two years later.

Which Greenville daily paper was founded in 1874?

The Greenville News began in 1874 as the Greenville Daily News; in 1927 its owners bought the rival afternoon Piedmont, which finally closed in 1995.

About how many people lived in the city of Greenville in 2020?

70,000 is about what the 2020 census counted inside the city limits, a small core for a metropolitan area of more than 900,000 people, the largest in South Carolina.

In which year did Greenville adopt the council-manager form of government?

Greenville adopted the council-manager form in 1976, soon after South Carolina's 1975 Home Rule Act; the council is the mayor plus six members, with the mayor and two members elected at-large.

What is the name of Greenville's public bus system?

Greenlink is the brand of the Greenville Transit Authority, whose fixed-route buses run from the downtown transit center to Mauldin, Simpsonville and other parts of Greenville County.

Which downtown Greenville festival has taken over a weekend each May since 2005?

Artisphere fills downtown with art, music and local food each May; by the festival's own count, it had put about $1 million back into local artists and arts groups by 2026.

Which downtown street did Mayor Max Heller narrow and line with trees in the 1970s?

Main Street was cut to two lanes and lined with trees and wide sidewalks under Max Heller, mayor from 1971 to 1979, who then used a 1978 federal grant to bring a convention hotel downtown.

Which university runs the International Center for Automotive Research campus in Greenville?

Clemson runs CU-ICAR as a 250-acre graduate campus for automotive and motorsports research, and a 2023 extension of the Swamp Rabbit Trail now reaches it.

As of 2025, which nonprofit health system operates Greenville Memorial Hospital?

Prisma Health was formed in 2017 when Greenville Health System merged with Palmetto Health; it leases the hospital from a public authority that still owns the buildings.

Greenville-raised U-2 pilot Rudolf Anderson was the only American killed by enemy fire in which Cold War standoff?

The Cuban Missile Crisis killed one American by enemy fire: Anderson, shot down over Cuba. He had finished high school in Greenville and is buried in the city.

Greenville's Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned for life after which team was accused of throwing the 1919 World Series?

The Chicago White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to Cincinnati. A Chicago jury acquitted Jackson and seven teammates in 1921, but Commissioner Landis banned all eight for life anyway.

In which 1989 baseball film does Ray Liotta play the ghost of Greenville's Shoeless Joe Jackson?

Field of Dreams is adapted from the 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, named for the outfielder who grew up in a company town on Greenville's outskirts.

Which Greenville-born Food Network chef became host of The Great Food Truck Race when it debuted in 2010?

Tyler Florence trained at culinary school in Charleston, then fronted Food 911 and Tyler's Ultimate. He has said the truck show helped invent a new genre of restaurants.

Which singer-songwriter, schooled in Greenville, reached number five on the Hot 100 in 1998 with I'll Be?

Edwin McCain graduated from Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville. The hit came from his second album, Misguided Roses, and he sang it again on The Masked Singer in 2025.

Greenville-born former governor Richard Riley spent eight years in Bill Clinton's cabinet as secretary of what?

Education secretary for both of Clinton's terms, from 1993 to 2001, Riley had earlier been South Carolina's governor from 1979 to 1987.

Which South Carolina region, the state's northwest corner along I-85, has Greenville as its largest city?

The Upstate, historically called the Upcountry, is usually counted as ten counties, with Greenville the base of most of its commerce.

Greenville lies at the foot of which mountain range, a province of the larger Appalachians?

The Blue Ridge Mountains rise so close that a rock outcrop in the county's far north stands more than 3,000 feet above sea level.

In 1971 Greenville-Pickens Speedway hosted the first race of which series televised live from flag to flag?

NASCAR reached a national audience from start to finish with the 1971 Greenville 200, shown on ABC's Wide World of Sports.

Camp Sevier, where the Army's Thirtieth Division trained on Greenville's outskirts, was built for which conflict?

World War I turned land outside Greenville into Camp Sevier, a temporary post for federalized National Guard troops. The Eighty-first and Twentieth Divisions followed the Thirtieth there.

Greenville County Museum of Art owns the largest public collection of watercolors by which painter of Christina's World?

Andrew Wyeth wrote in 1998 that the Greenville museum held what he considered the best collection of his watercolors in any public museum in the country.

Which Oscar-nominated star of 2023's The Color Purple studied drama at the Governor's School for the Arts in Greenville?

Danielle Brooks grew up in nearby Simpsonville and spent her last two years of high school at the selective arts boarding school, before Orange Is the New Black made her name.

Which Greenville-born author wrote Bastard Out of Carolina, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award?

Dorothy Allison was born in Greenville to a 15-year-old mother, and her semi-autobiographical first novel drew on that upbringing.

Greenville-born congressman Trey Gowdy chaired the House select committee on the 2012 attack in which Libyan city?

Benghazi occupied Gowdy's committee from 2014 to 2016, and its work helped bring Hillary Clinton's private email server to light.

Greenville-born golfer Lucas Glover won which major at Bethpage Black in 2009, two strokes clear of Phil Mickelson?

The U.S. Open was a surprise win: Glover arrived ranked 71st in the world and had never made the cut in his three previous tries at the championship.

The 1882 telescope at Greenville's Roper Mountain Science Center first served which university's observatory?

Princeton used the big refractor for decades, and the US Naval Observatory took it over in 1964 before it was renovated for Greenville.

Campbell's Bridge, built in 1909 in northern Greenville County, is South Carolina's last surviving bridge of which type?

Covered and wooden, the crossing over Beaverdam Creek took its name from Alexander Campbell, who ran the grist mill beside it.

Which Greenville County state park, named for a rocky outcrop, draws thousands of migrating hawks each autumn?

Caesars Head, one of the county's highest points, looks out over the Piedmont far below, and a trail in the park leads to 420-foot Raven Cliff Falls.

The open-air mountain chapel nicknamed Pretty Place belongs to a Greenville County camp run by which organization?

The YMCA runs Camp Greenville, where Fred Symmes had the chapel built in 1941 as his gift to the children who spend their summers at the camp.

Greenville mayor Max Heller, who led downtown's revival, left which European capital after the Nazis invaded in 1938?

Vienna was Heller's birthplace. After the invasion cost him his job, he wrote to a Greenville woman he had met the summer before, and she found him work at a local shirt company.

Milton Barnes coached the Greenville Groove to the first title in the NBA's minor circuit, then left for which team?

The Harlem Globetrotters hired Barnes after his Groove swept the North Charleston Lowgators two games to none in 2002. The Greenville club folded a year later.

Greenville-born bluesman Josh White sang at two inaugurations of which president and holidayed at his Hyde Park home?

Franklin Roosevelt heard White's album of anti-segregation songs and, rather than shunning him, asked him to give a command performance at the White House in 1941.

Which left-hander, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, pitched for the Greenville Braves on his way up?

Tom Glavine was drafted by a pro hockey team as well as by baseball in 1984, and went on to become only the fifth left-handed pitcher to win 300 games.

The Greenville Braves, the city's Double-A baseball club for two decades, moved after the 2004 season to which state?

Mississippi gained the franchise when its parent club transferred it to the city of Pearl. Greenville soon had a replacement team, the future Drive, which spent its first season in the old stadium.

Greenville's former ECHL hockey team, the Grrrowl, won which playoff championship trophy in 2002?

The Kelly Cup goes to the ECHL's playoff champion, and the Grrrowl lifted it in 2001–02. Four years later the team shut down when it could not find new financing.

Greenville Triumph SC began play in 2019 in which professional soccer competition, winning its title a year later?

USL League One crowned Greenville champions in 2020, a year after the Triumph had reached the final in their debut season and lost.

Which cyclist, a key domestique for Lance Armstrong at the Tour de France, settled in Greenville?

George Hincapie also rode in support of Alberto Contador in 2007 and Cadel Evans in 2011, the years each of them won the Tour.

Greenville-born senator Jim DeMint, a leading Tea Party figure, resigned in 2013 to run which conservative think tank?

The Heritage Foundation's presidency drew DeMint out of the Senate, but the think tank's own board asked him to step down in 2017.

Which president's nomination of Greenville judge Clement Haynsworth to the Supreme Court was voted down by the Senate?

Richard Nixon lost the vote 45 to 55 in November 1969. Haynsworth, born in Greenville, carried on as a federal appeals judge instead.

Psychologist John B. Watson, who moved to Greenville as a boy, launched which school of psychology with a 1913 address?

Behaviorism had a humble start: Watson's mother sold the family farm and moved him to Greenville, then a town of 8,000, to give him a better chance in life.

Transport planes from Greenville Air Force Base flew to Germany in 1948 to support which Cold War operation?

The Berlin Airlift, and later Korean duty, earned the Greenville base, by then home to huge C-124 Globemasters, the title Airlift Capital of the World.

What did Bob Jones University lose in a 1983 Supreme Court ruling over its racially discriminatory policies?

Its tax-exempt status dated from years when the IRS ignored private schools' racial policies. A 1970 rule change began the fight that the Greenville university took to the high court.

Which Greenville shopping center, opened in 1980 beside I-385, is South Carolina's largest by retail space?

Haywood Mall offers more than 1.2 million square feet of shops where Haywood Road meets I-385, and it added its food court in 1989.

Which writer reported on Greenville's 1947 Willie Earle lynching trial for The New Yorker as Opera in Greenville?

Rebecca West sat through a two-week trial at which the defendants were allowed to sit with their families. The killing is considered South Carolina's last lynching.

Which Greenville-born guitarist earned a Grammy nomination for El Dorado, his 2020 solo debut produced by Dan Auerbach?

Marcus King is the son of blues guitarist Marvin King, and he studied jazz at Greenville's Fine Arts Center before fronting his own band.

Which UFC welterweight, unbeaten in 57 kickboxing bouts, was born in Simpsonville in Greenville County?

Stephen Thompson, known as Wonderboy, began training at the age of three under his father, a former professional kickboxer who ran a karate school in Simpsonville.

Greenville Army Air Base opened in 1942 as a training base for crews of which twin-engine medium bomber?

B-25 Mitchell crews trained at Greenville from June 1942. The base later switched to transport aircraft and took the name Donaldson in 1951.

Greenville-born actor Bo Hopkins had his breakout role in which 1973 ensemble film about a night of teenage cruising?

American Graffiti made Hopkins a familiar face four years after The Wild Bunch, and he went on to more than 100 film and television roles over four decades.

What name did Greenville's Shoeless Joe Jackson give the bat he was handed as a teenage star?

Black Betsy came to Jackson while he played for a company team outside Greenville, where he had been moved to the outfield because nobody wanted to bat against his pitching.

Greenville County Museum of Art holds a large collection by which South Carolina-raised painter of flags and targets?

Jasper Johns was born in Georgia but raised in South Carolina, and in 1954 he destroyed his existing artwork before starting on the flags, maps and targets that made him famous.