Pioneer settlers came
to this area as early as the 1850s. Local tradition states that
the Greenwood and Hart families were among the first settlers in
the area, and that the community was named for the Greenwood family
and the creek was named for the Hart family. As the town of Greenwood
began to grow, businesses, churches, a cemetery, school, and Masonic
Lodge were established. A post office was opened in 1877, and a
town well was dug by John Karr Berry in the early 1890s. At its
peak, the town boasted two saloons, four grocery stores, two drug
stores, a hotel, bank, hardware store, barber shop, blacksmith shop,
cotton gin, and the Greenwood Gazette newspaper. The Greenwood Male
and Female College, although in operation for less than twenty years,
provided quality education for young people of the community. This
small settlement has served as a supply center for surrounding farming
communities for over one hundred years. It has also been a center
of social and religious activities. Three churches serve the Greenwood
area: Greenwood Baptist Church, founded as Hart's Creek Missionary
Baptist Church about 1872; Greenwood Methodist Church, founded about
1880; and Greenwood Church of Christ, founded in 1896. Click
here for more information about Greenwood today.
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