McPherson Park is a historic city park, the oldest in Greenville, South Carolina. As part of the East Park Historic District, the park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 4, 2005.
Greenville is the largest city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. The city's mayor is Knox H. White, who has been in that position since December 1995. With an estimated population of 68,219 as of 2017, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. The population of the surrounding area was 400,492 as of 2010, making it the third-largest urban area in South Carolina as well as the fastest growing. Greenville is the largest city in the Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin Metropolitan Statistical Area. The MSA had a population of 895,923 in 2017, making it the largest in South Carolina and the third largest in the Carolinas.
East Park Historic District is a national historic district located at Greenville, South Carolina. It encompasses 121 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 3 contributing structures in a middle- / upper-class neighborhood of Greenville. The houses date from about 1908 to 1950, and include Neoclassical, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Victorian, American Foursquare, Prairie Style, and bungalow styles.
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.
In June 1884, Caroline Cleveland Choice (1811-1905), widow of prominent attorney and political activist, William Choice, donated 2.6 acres, from which the city of Greenville created a park by adding to it 5.7 forested acres it had purchased two years before. Officials built a bandstand, but no other improvements were made until after the turn of the century. [1]
A bandstand is a circular or semicircular structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an ornamental focal point and also serves acoustic requirements while providing shelter for the changeable weather, if outdoors.
In 1911, businessman, former mayor, and state representative William Choice Cleveland (1883-1946), donated additional land including the site of an old tannery. [2] The park—originally called "City Park"—grew to 32 acres before construction of Academy Street in the early twentieth century reduced it to 12.5 acres. [3] In 1915 the site was used briefly as U. S. Army Camp Blythe; and during World War I, the area included a recruiting office and "makeshift housing for recruits."
By the 1920s the park "had become central to Greenville life," and it was the site of numerous Sunday school and cotton mill picnics, concerts, dances, and family reunions. [4] From 1935 to 1941 it was renovated by the Works Progress Administration; and in 1941, Sears, Roebuck and Company donated $7,500 toward the building of a stone shelter. [5] That same year, Greenville City Council renamed the park for city engineer John Alexander McPherson (1879-1961) in recognition of his service in developing the city's parks. [6]
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually Christian in character. They were first set up in the 1780s in England to provide education to working children. Today, Sunday school has become the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued and conducted on Sundays by various denominations.
A cotton mill is a building housing spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.
The Works Progress Administration was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of people to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was established on May 6, 1935, by Executive Order 7034. In a much smaller project, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The four projects dedicated to these were: the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of great importance for American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout America, and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US.
During the 1950s, a miniature train for children ran through the park; but with urban encroachment in the 1970s, the train was removed along with a pond and a baseball field. The park also lost twenty acres to new traffic patterns and other public uses. [7] For three years beginning in 1982, improvements in landscaping and lighting were made, and a 1912 bandstand was refurbished. In 2016, the park included walking paths, playgrounds, picnic tables and shelters, a miniature golf course, lighted tennis courts, a nameless stream crossed by several pedestrian bridges, [8] the Sears Shelter (which hosted dances, public meetings, and community events), and a log cabin, which from 1987 to 2010 served as a consignment shop for the sale of handicrafts made by retirees. [9]
Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. It is played on courses consisting of a series of holes similar to its parent, but characterized by their short length.
A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers.
