The Vedder Research Library

The fuller aerial taken in 2011 shows Country Estates with most of the proposed 155 units constructed. In the bottom left is GNH; the upper left shows Vanderbilt Park and GCS’s playing fields while the white buildings in the upper right shows Camp Malka (the former Ingalside). The inset, shot in 1990, shows the very beginning, with the dirt tracks marking the sites for the first houses. The shopping plaza sits upper center, while the bottom right would become town park property.

A rare 1950s aerial gives testimony to the nature of the typical farm in agricultural Greenville, with farm house, a larger barn, and outbuildings. For almost thirty years, current owners Dave and Marybeth Tschinkel and family have sold round and square hay bales, harvested wood, and raised Pygmy goats on their Plattekill Road farm, about a quarter mile off SR 32. Previously, the Ansbacher family had operated a dairy farm here from the 1930s until the 1980s; before that, the Carlsons resided here, with Mr. Carlson operating a barbershop in his home, with reports of the barber’s chair ring still pressed on the hardwood floor. The property had been part of a larger tract that stretched to the Basic Creek and included what is today J.P. North’s. Dave and Marybeth first purchased a 17 acre farm and have enlarged the farm to 100 acres since their 1988 purchase. One inset shows James, Khrystyne, Marybeth, and Dave in front of the farm house; the other shows the barn that the Tschinkels have saved from ruin.

Main Street, Greenville of 1940 is a familiar scene. Main Street bisects the bottom of photo, highlighting, left to right, the sun-soaked façades of the Baumann building, Stevens Hardware, and Gus Baker’s in a clump. A short break follows before arriving at the Simpson house and a building that is the Doerner Law Office today. Just out of view on the right side would have been Simpson’s Garage, today’s Stewarts. At the bottom sit the larger buildings of the south side: the Pharmacy and IGA store. The photo’s center shows the elongated Stevens store pointing to the Stevens Farm building, today the fire house. Topmost on the left are the trunks of the elm trees that used to ring the pond and park area. Center top is the Perkowski house, today the Pioneer/Rescue Squad office. The inset shows the road level façades of the clump of buildings, in the middle the new Tasting Lab and then Kelly’s Pharmacy.

After two decades of petitioning and lobbying from the Greenville Rotary and area businesses, NYS DOT effected a major reconstruction of a six mile stretch of State Route 32, centered near the intersection with State Route 143 in Dormansville. This reconstruction almost straightened the curves by Boomhower Rd, moved the road uphill near Dickinson Falls, and made SR 32 the non-stop, 55 mph road it is today. The upper-left photo shows the T-intersection by the older Agway, with the longer drawn-in black line showing the new curved roadway; the shorter blackened line shows the new approach on 143 which today comes to a stop. The lower-right photo shows the view from the south approaching the Hiawatha Grange (just off the right side of the photo) and curving toward the former Agway. Issues of the 1992 Greenville Local chronicled progress of the project, with completion the following year. Business leaders had not only wanted a more convenient ride but also hoped that business and population growth might come to Greenville. In the summer of 2020, that same section was re-paved.