Greenville is a city in Hunt County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 23,960. It is the county seat of Hunt County.
Greenville was named for Thomas J. Green, a general in the Texas Army in the war for independence from Mexico. He later became a member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. The city narrowly escaped being named “Pinckneyville” in honor of James Pinckney Henderson, the first Governor of Texas.
Greenville is infamous for a banner that hung over Lee Street in the downtown district between the train station and the bus station from the 1920s to 1960s. The banner read “Welcome to Greenville, The Blackest Land, The Whitest People”. The same sentiment was also printed on the city water tower. An image of the sign was available as a postcard.[3] From the 1960s to the 1970s the sign was replaced by one that read “The Blackest Land, The Greatest People”. Subsequently the sign was taken down entirely. The banner is now displayed in the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum.
