Greenville Commercial Historic District

Greenville's downtown commercial core, centered on South Evans and Fifth Streets, holds 72 resources, most of them brick commercial buildings with retail space on the first floor and offices above. Built largely between 1900 and 1925, the buildings followed fires that destroyed much of the frame downtown in 1878, 1896, 1899 and 1910. After the 1899 fire the Board of Alderman required new construction along Evans Street to be brick. The district also includes the 1911 Pitt County Courthouse, designed by Milburn and Heister, and the 1913 Post Office by Oscar Wenderoth. The Montgomery Ward store, a three-story Art Deco building of 1929, and the 1911 Proctor Hotel, with seventy-seven rooms, add to its commercial character. Two dwellings, the c. 1860 Charles Greene House and the 1895 Robert Lee Humber House, survive from before the commercial growth. The district is regarded as a representative and intact record of Greenville's rise as a regional trading center.