page_title: Greensboro, North Carolina
section_title: Industrialization and growth
hierarchical_section_title: Greensboro, North Carolina / History / Industrialization and growth
caption_attribution_description: English: White Oak Mill in Greensboro, North Carolina
context_page_description: Greensboro is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina, the 68th-most populous city in the United States, and the largest city in the Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. At the 2010 United States Census the city population was 269,666. In 2019 the estimated population was 296,710. Three major interstate highways in the Piedmont region of central North Carolina were built to intersect at this city.
  In 1808, "Greensborough" was planned around a central courthouse square to succeed Guilford Court House as the county seat. The county courts were thus placed closer to the geographical center of the county, a location more easily reached at the time by the majority of the county's citizens, who depended on horse and foot for travel.
  In 2003, the previous Greensboro – Winston-Salem – High Point metropolitan statistical area was re-defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. This region was separated into the Greensboro–High Point MSA and the Winston-Salem MSA. The 2010 population for the Greensboro–High Point MSA was 723,801.
context_section_description: After the war, investors worked to restore the textile mills and related industry. In the 1890s, the city continued to attract attention from northern industrialists, including Moses and Caesar Cone of Baltimore, Maryland. The Cone brothers established large-scale textile plants, changing Greensboro from a village to a city within a decade. By 1900, Greensboro was considered a center of the Southern textile industry, with large-scale factories producing denim, flannel, and overalls. The resulting prosperity was expressed in the construction of notable twentieth-century civic architecture, including the Guilford County Courthouse, West Market Street United Methodist Church by S. W. Faulk, several buildings designed by Frank A. Weston, and the Julius I. Foust Building of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, designed by Orlo Epps.
  During the twentieth century, Greensboro continued to increase in population and wealth. Grand commercial and civic buildings, many of which still stand today, were designed by local architects Charles Hartmann and Harry Barton. Other notable industries became established in the city, including Vicks Chemical Co. (famous for over-the-counter cold remedies such as VapoRub and NyQuil), Carolina Steel Corporation, and Pomona Terra Cotta Works. During the first three decades, Greensboro grew so rapidly that there was an acute worker housing shortage. Builders set a construction goal of 80 to 100 affordable housing units per year to provide homes for workers. Greensboro's real estate was considered "the wonder of the state" during the 1920s. Growth continued even through the Great Depression, as Greensboro attracted an estimated 200 new families per year to its population. The city earned a reputation as a well-planned community, with a strong emphasis on education, parks, and a profitable employment base.
  It has two major public research universities, North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black college established in the late 19th century, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During the height of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, students from A&T were the major force in protests to achieve racial justice, desegregation of public facilities, and fair employment, beginning with the Greensboro Four, who sat in at the segregated lunch counter at Woolworth's in 1960 to gain service. The largest civil rights protests in North Carolina history took place in Greensboro in May and June 1963. In the 21st century, the universities are leaders in new areas of research in high tech and science, on which the city hopes to build a new economy.
  Wartime and postwar prosperity brought development, and designs commissioned from nationally and internationally known architects. For instance, Walter Gropius, a leader of the German Bauhaus movement in the United States, designed a factory building in the city in 1944. Greensboro-based Ed Loewenstein designed projects throughout the region. Eduardo Catalano and George Matsumoto were hired for projects whose designs have challenged North Carolinians with modernist architectural concepts and forms.
caption: White Oak Mill in 1909
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