COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dozens of folks with ties to the Greenview neighborhood in Columbia showed up to the Richland Library Thursday night for an information session about the history and cultural beginnings of Columbia's historic Greenview community.
"What was here before there was a neighborhood was farms, farmland," said Eric Friendly, curator of history at Historic Columbia.
The large neighborhood community of Greenview here in north Columbia -- bounded by I-20, SC-277, Cushman Drive, Koon Road, and North Main/US-21 -- has lots of history.
History that's been documented, recorded and photographed since it's establishment in the late 1940s, early 1950s by Historic Columbia.
"I think it's really important for any community, any family to know their history and to pull out those stories that really make that space important," Ida Thompson, attendee said.
Thompson, one of the attendees at the session Thursday night, grew up in Greenview, as part of one of the original families to live there. She brought documents, deeds, pictures and research of her own to contribute to the information session.
"Most of those individuals who were the first homeowners have passed away and so a lot of people who now reside in Greenview don't know about its history," Thompson said.
Friendly gave the presentation, showing maps of the growth in Greenview, documents of segregated marketing for homes in the neighborhood and pictures of the first church in the area from the early 1950s.
"It was a post-WWII suburb, so you had a lot of veterans who were returning to Columbia that took advantage of the G.I. Bill," Friendly said.
Tony Thomas, another attendee and native to Greenview, shared that the bonds this neighborhood had were unlike neighborhood bonds today.
"A lot of the adults that lived in our community were licensed in a variety of different skills, from building, concrete, plumbing, electrical engineers, and they were all certified. And any time you needed anything done, you didn't have to go outside of the community to find someone to come in and do the work," Thomas said.
He explained sharing histories of communities like this one are important.
"So that we know what direction we're traveling in and that we can protect ourselves from going in the wrong direction," Thomas said.
If you are from Greenview and want to share any documents or photos to help add to the area's history, reach out to the Richland Library's Walker Local and Family History Center and they can make a copy archive.