With 60,000 people, Greenville is one of South Carolina’s largest cities. Established in 1776, this textile-producing center has a beautiful orderly downtown with plenty of parks, trees, and public artworks. Served by train and located at the intersection of I-85, I-385, and I-185 in the state’s northwest, it offers entertainment and historic, scenic, and family attractions. Greenville’s distinguished citizens have included psychologist John Watson (1878-1958) who developed an influential movement in psychology called behaviorism; Charles Townes, who shared the 1964 Nobel prize for physics for his work on masers and lasers; and distinguished African-American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

Different aspects of Greenville’s history are represented in two of its museums. The Greenville Cultural Exchange Center is a museum and resource center dedicated to African-Americans. Displays relate to Jesse Jackson and early Greenville.

The 16th South Carolina Volunteers Museum of Confederate History is located in the Pettigru Historic District. It houses a collection of Confederate artifacts, both military and personal, and a research library.

Bob Jones University is a training ground for the fundamentalist right. It features a large collection of religious paintings while the Greenville County Museum of Art is particularly strong on Southern art. It includes works by Jasper Johns and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Cultural programs are offered at the Nippon Center, which is in the style of a fourteenth-century Japanese mansion and features a lotus pond, some cherry trees, and also a rock garden.

For outdoor entertainment try the Greenville Zoo; the test gardens of the Park Seed Company, which are at their best from May to July; and the Reedy River Falls Historic Park, which occupies the downtown site upon which Greenville was first established in 1776. The latter features walking paths, picnic spots, two waterfalls, and six landscaped garden areas.

Another place of interest is the Roper Mountain Science Center, an educational center that features a living history farm, a Discovery Room, a Sealife Room, an observatory, a health education center, chemistry/physics shows, and also a planetarium.

To the north of Greenville is Paris Mountain State Park and 25 miles northwest is the Mountain Bridge State Natural Area, where the spectacular Blue Ridge Mountains suddenly drop nearly 2,000 feet to the piedmont, forming an escarpment which furnishes excellent views of the foothills to the south. Here Raven Falls, the highest in the state, drop 420 feet into the gorge below. Also to the northwest is Table Rock State Park, which is one of the state’s oldest and most popular parks.