All Aboard!

All Aboard!. . Before the arrival of the railroads, Greenville and its surroundings were agricultural areas. Scarcity of shipping facilities for getting crops to market forced most families to practice subsistence farming. The few shops were stocked with deliveries made by ox-drawn wagons and the closest bank was in Terrell, 30 miles away. According to the local newspaper, "business was dull in Greenville, the prospects gloomy"., A group of community and business leaders joined forces to offer free right of way and a cash bonus to bring the railroad to town. The first train thundered into Greenville October 1, 1880, creating an economic boom. The few thousand bales of cotton shipped from Greenville in 1880 became 10,000 bales in 1881 and more than 20,000 bales in 1882. Thousands of acres of blackland prairie were planted in cotton, while gins, compresses, and oil mills were built to process the crop., The first bank opened in January, 1881 followed by the three-story brick Ende Hotel. The hotel attracted traveling salesmen who brought goods from all over the world to local shops. The village that boasted 1,100 residents at the time the first steam engine belched into town had grown to 4,330 by 1890.