Date: 1927

 

Description: In 1869, Irish immigrant Thomas Green began a brickyard in the hills near Floyd Cemetery, where clay was abundant. The employees of the brickyard soon developed a community nearby the plant where they worked, and they called it Greenville, after the owner of the yard. It was the first residential community in the Floyd River Valley, when the area was simply a few grain mills on the river. This photo shows the main street of Greenville, Correctionville Road, as it appeared in the late 1920s, looking west to the intersection of Fairmont Street. Though never incorporated as its own town, Greenville was a major entryway suburb into Sioux City. The neighborhood was absorbed into the city in 1889, covering the area south of the Floyd Cemetery, from the Floyd River along Correctionville Road to Bacon Creek. Railroad tracks on the Milwaukee Road were laid through it, and the street Correctionville Road became part of Highway 20. Eventually Thomas Green’s brickyard moved west and a new community rose up around the new yard, Springdale. Greenville, however, continued to thrive despite the brickyard’s absence. People found work in the stockyards and other industries and Greenville continued to grow. It sported its own hotel, barbershop, grocery stores and many other various businesses.

 

When Sioux City was racked with the Great Depression, Greenville was a major component of the 1933 Milk War. Farmers and dairy sellers from out of town tried to bring their goods to sell in Sioux City for their livelihood. Local area sellers, however, did not want these new farmers coming in and taking the market. So striking farmers and producers lined up in Greenville on Highway 20 to stop these truckers from bringing in their goods. Milk was spilled along the highway, and the incident came to be known as the Milk War. Today Sioux City has grown up and around the community of Greenville, but neighborhood still exists today and has not lost its individual spirit. Many of the old businesses still operate, like the barbershop and Greenville Pharmacy, and new businesses have moved in as well, like Rocket Auto Wash and Tastee In and Out Drive Thru, one of the city’s earliest drive-thru restaurants. The modern boundaries of the community are approximately from Floyd Cemetery south to around Leech Avenue, and from the old Floyd River channel east to Bacon Creek, with Gordon Drive splitting the community in half. Greenville residents still take part in and remember the history one of Sioux City’s earliest suburbs.

 

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On display