Lakeport Legacies · July 19 · Old Houses of Blanton Park: Greenville’s Lost Downtown Neighborhood · Princella Nowell (Washington County, MS)
Lakeport Legacies · July 19 · Old Houses of Blanton Park: Greenville’s Lost Downtown Neighborhood · Princella Nowell (Washington County, MS)
The town of “New Greenville,” founded behind Island 83 on the Mississippi River in 1865, was located on the plantation of Harriet (Blanton) Theobald. Theobald’s home place was outside of the new town. After her death, her surviving son, Orville M. Blanton, subdivided her personal property into Blanton Park, est. in 1886. Blanton Park became a residential subdivision with homes of family members, professionals, and politicians. On its corners and edges were churches, businesses, clubs, and the Greenville Sanitarium. The story is explained of how the “Park” was subdivided, who lived there, and what eventually happened to the homes and churches as they were abandoned to fire, flood, and neglect.
Ann Rayburn Paper Americana Collection, Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries
