Greer Heritage Museum is a

local history museum A local museum or local history museum is a type of museum that shows the historical development of a place/region (local history) using exhibits. These museums usually maintain a collection of historic three-dimensional objects which are exh ...

Greer, South Carolina Greer is a city in Greenville County, South Carolina, Greenville and Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Spartanburg counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 35,308 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census Greer is ...

, near the

Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport The Upstate is the region in the westernmost part of South Carolina, United States, also known as the Upcountry, which is the historical term. Although loosely defined among locals, the general definition includes the 10 counties of the commerc ...

. The museum was founded by Carmela B. Hudson (1920-2017), a native of New Haven, Connecticut, a member of the

U.S. Army Nurse Corps The United States Army Nurse Corps (USANC) was formally established by the U.S. Congress in 1901. It is one of the six medical special branches (or "corps") of officers which – along with medical enlisted soldiers – comprise the Army Medical ...

in World War II, a graduate of

Furman University Furman University is a private liberal arts university in Greenville, South Carolina. Founded in 1826 and named for the clergyman Richard Furman, Furman University is the oldest private institution of higher learning in South Carolina. It became ...

, and an elementary school teacher and librarian. Hudson "built the collection from nothing, pulled together a board of directors, and established a non-profit." In 2008, the museum moved to the former Greer post office built in 1935, where its collections were displayed under the direction of another former librarian and English professor, Joada Hiatt, a native of Kentucky. After Hiatt moved from Greer and local interest in the museum had declined, the board, in 2021, chose as director, David Lovegrove, a native of Idaho and chief marketing officer for Bob Jones University. Lovegrove spearheaded a museum revitalization. The museum's exhibits include displays on Native Americans, agriculture, the textile industry, late 19th-century upper-middle-class life, and popular culture in the mid-20th century. The museum is located in the former Greer Post Office, a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Colonial Revival-style post office was constructed in 1935 under the supervision of the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

during the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

era and designed by New York City-based architect Donald G. Anderson, with

Louis A. Simon Louis Adolphe Simon (1867–1958) was an American architect. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Simon was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a tour of Europe, he opened an architectural office in Baltimore, M ...

named as supervising architect. Unlike this post office, most New Deal-era buildings were designed by in-house architects. The former post office lobby features a mural, "Cotton and Peach Growing," painted in 1940 by the obscure artist Winfield Walkley (1909–1954). Although the mural was roughly handled and covered with paneling when the post office became the Greer city hall in 1968, the paneling was removed in 2008 following acquisition of the property by the museum.City of Greer website.
/ref> The mural is one of 13 commissioned between 1938 and 1941 by the US Department of Treasury's Section of Fine Arts for South Carolina federal buildings and post offices. In 1964, the building was sold to the city of Greer for use as a city hall.

References

External links

City of Greer: Greer Heritage Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greer Post Office National Register of Historic Places in Spartanburg County, South Carolina Buildings and structures in Spartanburg County, South Carolina Greer, South Carolina Museums in Spartanburg County, South Carolina Public Works Administration in South Carolina