Greensboro, from blue jeans to Woolworth's, explored in new book
Stephen H. Provost
I started my Century Cities series an hour to the north of my home in Martinsville, Virginia, and eight books later, I headed an hour south to Greensboro for Book No. 9.
Greensboro was actually a little closer than Roanoke, so I’d been there often before I decided to write about it. I’ve shopped at the Friendly Center and the Four Seasons mall. I’ve explored shops downtown. I’ve eaten several meals at the Green Valley Grill, a delicious restaurant at the new O. Henry Hotel (which isn’t the same as the original O. Henry, I discovered in researching this book.)
I’ve even taken some photos there for The Great American Shopping Experience, my book on the history of retail in 20th century America.
Greensboro is perhaps best known as the birthplace of the lunch-counter sit-in movement that helped break segregation in the South. It was there, at a Woolworth’s on Elm Street, that four Black college students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a segregated counter to be served. It was the beginning of a movement that would spread across the South, a key moment in the struggle for civil rights.
What I didn’t know is that the struggle had played out on a segregated city golf course a few years earlier, leading to a landmark court decision that built on Brown v. Board of Education.
Greensboro’s been a transportation hub since the end of the 19th century, when trains rolled in and out at a rate of 60 a day. That’s how it got its nickname, “The Gate City.” Fewer trains pass through these days, but several highways meet in Greensboro, branching out to Roanoke in the north, Raleigh-Durham in the east, Winston-Salem in the west, and Charlotte to the south.
The 20th century saw Greensboro grow from a city of barely 10,000 people at its outset to a bustling metropolis of more than 220,000 by the end of the millennium. In the meantime, it gave birth to a textile boom that blossomed into a blue jean bonanza. It has hosted a major golf tournament that’s been won by the likes of Sam Snead, Billy Casper, and Gary Player.
The city hosted an NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, won by home-state favorite North Carolina State, and even had its own pro basketball team in the American Basketball Association for a few years. The Carolina Cougars were coached by Hall of Famer Larry Brown from 1972 to 1974 and led by another Hall of Famer, Billy Cunningham, the league’s MVP in 1973
The famed short story writer O. Henry (real name: William Sidney Porter, for whom the hotel was named) worked at a downtown pharmacy owned by his uncle called Porter’s Drugs. A later owner of that same drugstore developed a famous treatment for head and chest congestion that's still popular today: Vicks VapoRub.
His name wasn’t Vick, though.
From blue jean and textiles to the Woolworth’s lunch counter Greensboro Century is filled with stories of milestones in the city’s history during the 20th century. Packed with historical images and contemporary photos I took myself, it’s a year-by-year chronicle of how Greensboro has grown and changed over the years.
If you’ve ever been to Greensboro or are planning to go, I invite you to take this journey with me back in time to North Carolina in the 20th century — and, if you’re interested, side trips to Roanoke or Danville in Virginia; Fresno, San Luis Obispo, or Cambria in California; Charleston or Huntington, West Virginia; or the Nevada boomtown of Goldfield.
Greensboro Century, like all the books in this series, is available on Amazon in paperback or keepsake hardcover editions.
I hope to see you there.