Greensboro Commercial Historic District

Greensboro's commercial core centers on the crossing of Broad and Main Streets, with a courthouse square just to the north. Laid out in 1786 as the Greene County seat, the town developed its first business area here. Most buildings are one- and two-story brick commercial blocks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with corbeled brickwork, pilasters, pressed-metal cornices and display windows. Two buildings fill entire blocks at the main corner: the antebellum 'Big Store,' later enlarged, and Copelan's block. The square holds the 1849 three-story Greek Revival courthouse, whose third floor was added for a Masonic lodge, along with the granite 'Old Gaol' of about 1807 and an 1895 Romanesque jail. A 1937 post office is the last historic addition. The district matters for its architecture, its intact gridiron town plan, and its record of local commerce and government from 1786 to 1937.