The Vedder Research Library

Greenville Free Academy, pre-1906

Back when Greenville Center was a busier hamlet, the Shaw store, once the site of a blacksmith shop, operated on the southwest corner of the four corners. James Shaw Sr. & Jr. ran the store in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Anton Mickelsen bought the property in the 1930’s, and his son Grant operated a store here in the late 1940’s until a fire severely damaged this structure in the 1950’s. Grant Mickelsen renovated the structure and maintains it as a private residence today. The child on the porch remains unidentified.

Stuck in the springtime mud on the section of the Greenville Center road (today’s CR41) between the four corners and Fox Hill Road, this car shows one of the hazards of rural driving in the 1930’s. The Erwin plan of the 1950’s dramatically improved Greenville’s roads, and gradually all town roads were mostly free of dust, mud, implacable snow banks, and severe corners and turns. The last dirt road in Greenville (Tranquility Road) was paved in 1990.

A bucolic Greenville Center, at the intersection of today’s West Road and Country Rt 41, is revealed in this 1920-ish post card. Still recognizable is the Baptist Church on the left. On the right is the blacksmith shop and the corner store, also a residence for the Shaw family in the early-mid 20th century. The shop was razed and the store suffered a fire in the 1960s; the store was remodeled for the Mickelsen residence.