2009 Official Visitor & Dining Guide for Greensboro, North Carolina - (Page 2) history of greensboro HISTORy OF GREENSBORO Saura and Keyauwee Indians called North Carolina’s Piedmont region home in the 1600s and early 1700s, then Germans, Quakers of Welsh and English descent and Scotch-Irish from the northern colonies, and African Americans began to move here around 1740. These pioneers worked the land and shaped the future for generations to come. In an effort to thwart the invasion of North Carolina by 1,900 redcoats under Lord Cornwallis, American Major Gen. Nathanael Greene deployed 4,400 rebels at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781. Cornwallis held the field after an intense fight, but he lost a quarter of his army, which hastened his defeat at yorktown seven months later. In 1807, the residents of the area voted to create a new, more centrally located seat of government. The following year, elected officials mapped out a 42-acre tract of land, paid $98 to purchase it, and suggested that it be named “Greensborough” in honor of Gen. Greene. A CENTER FOR EDUCATION By 1767 Presbyterian minister David Caldwell and his wife Rachel had started a local school that prepared young men to study at the university level. By 1837, Quakers in the New Garden community had formed a boarding school for training teachers. Known today as Guilford College, it was the first coeducational institution in the South. A tax-supported public school system was started in 1875, but schools remained segregated until 1957. In 1971, Greensboro redistricted its schools and implemented a busing plan to achieve full school integration. Greensboro was ahead of most cities in placing emphasis on higher education for women and African Americans. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (originally the Normal and Industrial School for White Girls), North Carolina A&T State University (formerly the Agriculture and Mechanical College for the Colored Race), Bennett College for Women (originally Bennett Seminary), Greensboro College (originally Greensborough Female College) and Guilford College continue to play a vital role in the city today. As do the newly formed (2005) Elon University School of Law and (1958) Guilford Technical Community College. A CENTER OF ECONOMIC GROWTH The railroad was a key factor in Greensboro’s prosperity and industrial growth. John Motley Morehead, a North Carolina governor and former student of David Caldwell, campaigned for two decades to have Greensboro included as a stop on the North Carolina Railroad. Finally, in 1856, a special east-west line of tracks was completed. During the Civil War, Greensboro was both a storehouse and a railroad center for the Confederacy, a vital source of supplies and troops for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Civilian refugees and wounded soldiers were transported and sheltered here. Greensboro became the seat of the Confederacy on April 11, 1865, as Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrived here after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox to discuss the military situation of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and the weakened Army of the Tennessee. Later, all Confederate forces in North Carolina were mustered out and paroled in Greensboro. William Sydney Porter was an eyewitness to the occupation of Greensboro by Union troops. years later, using his pen name “O. Henry”, he recounted these experiences in some of his short stories. Porter’s uncle ran a successful town drugstore in the 1890s. Lunsford Richardson, one of the store’s investors, developed a line of “Vick’s Family Remedies.” Vicks VapoRub was one of his successful creations. Textiles were important in Greensboro as early as 1828 when Henry Humphreys built North Carolina’s first steam-powered cotton mill. In 1895, Moses and Ceasar Cone selected Greensboro for their Southern Finishing and Warehouse Co., forerunner of Cone Mills. By 1920, Blue Bell was 2 www.VisitGreensboroNC.com http://www.VisitGreensboroNC.com
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