Part of Greenville’s up-to-date business section, with its many modern stores and office-buildings.
The Growth of Greenville
Pitt County's capital lias made remarkable
strides as a wholesale distributing center,
tobacco market, trading area, manufactur¬
ing center and a generally good place in
which to live.
6REENVILLE is a small town,
county seat of Pitt County,
and has a population of
4,268.
It has a tobacco market. There
are three warehouses, and last year
10,000.000 pounds of tobacco was
sold.
There are no radios in Green¬
ville.
Neither are there any electric
refrigerators.
And you won’t find a single
house that has oil heat.
Citizens of Greenville are pro¬
gressive, because there are at least
thirty automobiles that are owned
by citizens of the town.
We haven’t observed a single
truck, however.
Greenville has —
But I reckon we’d better quit
right here. By this time, frenzied
readers in Greenville probably are
shouting: "The guy has gone nuts!”
Chamber of Commerce Secretary
Kyzer is probably rolling on the
floor. Mayor Boyd is gnashing his
teeth, and various and sundry citi¬
zens such as Ralph Garrett, Con
By CARL GOERCI1
Lanier, Jim Ficklen. Judson and
Marvin Blount. Dave Whichard.
Icey Little and others are sadly
shaking their heads and saying: "I
certainly am sorry for his wife!"
So let me explain hastily that the
Greenville I’m talking about is the
Greenville I knew when I first came
to eastern North Carolina in 1913
— 34 years ago. I was a resident
of Washington, and with our popu¬
lation of around 5,500 we sort of
looked down on Greenville as being
a little country town. Kind of a
patronizing attitude, you know.
And let me explain with an equal
degree of haste that the Greenville
of 1947 is just as far removed from
the Greenville of 1913 as a bottle
of pre-war Scotch is from a bottle
of tomato catsup. The town has
surged forward steadily in new1
manufacturing industries, in retail
and wholesale business, in its
nationally-known tobacco market,
its beautiful residences, its fine
school system, its East Carolina
Teachers College and the progres¬
sive spirit of its citizenship.
Now then, Mr. Kyzer, Mr. Boyd,
Mr. Garrett, et al, that ought' to
square us with you, so now we’ll
really start telling our readers
about the Greenville of today.
First off, let’s see about popula¬
tion.
According to the U. S. Census,
the city’s population in 1940 was
12,674 — 98.4 per cent American —
while in 1930 it was 9,194. The in¬
crease in the ten-year period
amounted to 38 per cent. The
present population is 16,320, ac¬
cording to the new city directory.
The city limits were extended in
July of this year and this meant
an increase of from 2.000 to 2,500.
So a conservative estimate of the
population of Greenville at the
present time is 18,000.
Which is a long way from the
4,268 figure of 1913.
We said a moment ago that
Greenville is surging forward
steadily. It doesn’t do any good
(Continued on page 14)
THE STATE. August 16. 1947
11
