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Greer
Greer City Hall
Greer is a city in Greenville and Spartanburg counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina, between the cities of Greenville and Spartanburg. The population was 25,515 at the 2010 census. It is projected to hit 30,000 within 4 years. Each day, more than three times that number of people pass through the city on the two highways which run through the city.
city park
Greer is adjacent to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP), which
serves Greenville, Spartanburg, and the Upstate. Greer is also the site of the
only BMW manufacturing facility in North
America. According to a June 2005 article in The Greenville News, BMW's Greer
plant employs about 4,600 workers, and has attracted dozens of suppliers in
South Carolina, providing jobs for more than 12,000 workers.
BMW manufacturing
BMW public relations center and museum
Greer was founded by James Manning Greer, a man from the Clan McGregor whose ancestry traces from Scotland, through Ireland. Many of his descendents still reside in the region. James Manning Greer was a descendant of John Greer who arrived in Charleston aboard the ship The Falls in 1764. The Greer family settled at Duncans Creek which eventually became Greer Station.
former train station
The commonly accepted origin of the Greer name is that it is derived from the Clan Gregor - the MacGregors or sons of Gregor. Note there is no distinction between McGregor and MacGregor, both being anglicised versions of the Gaelic name.
on the tracks
Located in the picturesque foothills of the Upstate region of South Carolina, Greer enjoys a distinguished past, from its days as a hunting ground for local Cherokees, to its settlement by pioneering families in the 1700s, to the advent of the railroad in the 1800s. Today, Greer possesses a combination of small-town charm and big-city opportunities, attracting a wide variety of businesses and people from across the country and the world.
former bonded warehouse
The area now known as Greer was once part of the “Domain of the Cherokees” prior to the American Revolutionary War. In 1777, the area was added to the state of South Carolina. Development toward the birth of the town occurred in 1873 when the Richmond and Danville Air Line Railway (now the CSX Railway) established a line between Atlanta and Charlotte. A station was built on land that belonged to James Manning Greer, and was named Greer’s Station. The first post office was located in the new depot, Greer’s Depot. When the town was incorporated in 1876, it was named Town of Greer’s. One hundred years later, the name was officially changed to the City of Greer without an “s” on the end.
Merchants, blacksmiths and physicians set up shop in what is now the downtown
area of Greer. In 1900, Greer’s first bank, the Bank of Greer’s, opened. The
Piedmont and Northern Railway laid a second railroad line through Greer in 1914.
With two active train lines, Greer became an attractive site for commerce. The
railway meant big business for local farmers, enabling them to ship their crops,
mainly cotton and peaches, out of state. Greer also became a
textile-manufacturing center, with flourishing mills that included Victor,
Franklin, Apalache and Greer Mills. The communities that grew up around the
mills were as close-knit as the outlying farming communities.
After World War II, the city began to grow and diversify its industrial base. A
new hospital and high school were built. People came to downtown Greer from
Spartanburg and Greenville to shop. In the early 1960s, Interstate 85 was
opened, as well as the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. Foreign
imports derailed the textile industry in the 1970s and threatened to turn Greer
into a ghost town, but the citizens of Greer worked together to recruit new
industry.
Text from Wikipedia
Clinton Clemson Columbia Covered Bridges Cowpens Gaffney Greenville Greer Strom Thurmond Walhalla
