12/17/2025
In 1797, when Lemuel J. Alston laid out the village of Pleasantburg (now Greenville), Court Square was designed as a destination, not an intersection to rush through.
For the first century of our city's history, Court Square was Greenville's open-air "living room." It was social: The grand Mansion House hotel sat right here, where locals and visitors gathered on the piazza to talk and watch the town go by. It was civic: The original Robert Mills-designed courthouse anchored the square, serving as a forum for public debate and news. It was commercial: Local merchants sold wares and farmers used this space as a central market, trading goods and livestock in the open air.
It wasn't until the 1920s—when we demolished the old courthouse and prioritized the automobile—that we transformed this unified square into a generic traffic intersection. We traded a vibrant civic plaza for a thoroughfare for cars.
The current bricked section preserves the borders of the original square. By closing that section to cars, we could restore the historic center of our downtown to its original purpose—a central point for gathering, not just navigating.
It really wouldn’t take much—just moving the bollards to close off the traffic lanes on Main and Court would be enough to reclaim the space for people, diverting much of the through-traffic to the edges of downtown and away from the pedestrian core.
Closing Court Street to cars isn't a radical new idea; it’s a restoration of the city's original design. Don’t you think it is time to give the heart of Greenville back to the people?
