The Vedder Research Library

Main Street (today’s Rt. 81) Greenville dozes peacefully on a mid-winter day, in February, 1924. The intersection lies just beyond the two cars and the Corner Restaurant (demolished in the 1960s) on the left, and just past the white picket fence that bracketed the corner that is marked by the empty gas station today. In the distance, West Street winds its way toward Norton Hill, with the Greenville Theater jutting out on the left, while the houses of the Roe, Cunningham, Botsford families, etc., snuggle on the road’s right-hand side.

One intrepid photographer captured this January 1938 flooding of the Greenville Pond. This photo looks across the pond from the library lawn. From the left: the Pioneer Insurance building (not even a decade old yet after replacing the Greenville Hotel; current Town Offices); in the background, the cupola-crowned carriage barn of the Vanderbilt residence on South Street (today, property of the Greenville Arms ); the small shed that had seen service as the fire house for the town; and, rightmost, the Vanderbilt Theater in its heyday, serving as Greenville’s community and cultural center (it was razed in the early 1980s, today the site of Cumberland Farms). Elms trees dignified the town center until the Dutch Elm blight caused their destruction. The inset shows today’s buildings obscured by the summer growth of young trees.

A neat dredging of the Greenville Pond drew spectators as it neared completion in this mid-July, 1949 photo. On the left, Wessel’s Garage was nearing its end, to be replaced by the new barbershop (today, Mangold’s Realty). Right-center shows the Stevens Farm Store. On the right, just visible is the Stevens Store extension. The laid up stonewall edging was “improved” later by the riprap of today. It seems the pond is (should be) dredged every ten to twenty years. Earlier calendar photos have shown a 1930s and a 1970 dredging. The 2000s awaits its first dredging. The inset shows the current angle.

This innocuous picture of men spraying water from a hose into the Greenville Pond is actually a benchmark photo for the Greenville community. The need for fire protection culminated in a September 1939 meeting of 28 people, presided by Millard Felter, with the purpose of organizing what would become the Greenville Volunteer Fire Company. Almost two months later, the company took possession of its first fire truck, a 1939 Sanford 500 GPM pumper. This photo shows an early test in temperatures cold enough to create ice on the overhead lines. The structure in the background is Wessel’s Garage, today’s Mangold Realty site.