History tours began as Greenville’s downtown revived: Glimpses of Greenville with John Nolan

In celebration of my 100th article for the Greenville Journal, I thought I’d share a little background of the beginnings of historic city tours.

The first effort to offer guided tours of Greenville came in 1981. Tours Around Greenville South was organized as a nonprofit by the Metropolitan Arts Council in the absence of any convention and visitors bureau. Greenville’s revitalization was in its infancy, with the newly landscaped two-lane Main Street just a few years old. During the daytime, local business workers patronized the few shops and restaurants that survived the 1970s.

However, downtown’s after-work crowd consisted of what The Greenville News described as winos, the homeless, prostitutes and cruising teenagers. Nonetheless, a concerted effort was afoot to change the trajectory.

Greenville City Council approved $10,000 for the MAC to staff and create — with research help from Furman history professor A.V. Huff — a pilot program under director Jo Ann Walker. Forty volunteers were trained to lead three thematic driving tours starting at Falls Cottage. One focused on historic buildings, including visits to Whitehall, Christ Church Episcopal, the Kilgore-Lewis house, and some public buildings and parks.

Another tour featuring cultural assets visited Furman University, theaters, and art museums at Bob Jones University and Heritage Green. A third tour was a shopping experience to factory outlets at the Mills Centre (the former Mills Mill) and local shops.

Though only three tours were given in the first 10 months of the program, it nonetheless garnered state recognition in early 1982 as the most outstanding innovation in South Carolina tourism by the state Chamber of Commerce’s Travel Awards Program.

Early services were only for visiting convention clients but later expanded to include tours for newcomers, seniors, scouts, community clubs and church groups. By 1988, they served more than 6,000 people with 25 guides and received additional funding from the city’s accommodations tax.

As Greenville developed in the 1990s, new features were added as attractions to the tours. Buildings from the old carriage factory complex and Duke’s mayonnaise factory along the riverwalk were featured, as well as the newly built Peace Center, the Reedy River falls and historic buildings surrounding Court Square. Revitalized historic neighborhoods including Hampton-Pinckney, Earle Street, James Street, Belmont Avenue and Park Avenue also became features as their buildings were improved and restored.

In 1993, TAGS moved under the auspices of the Historic Greenville Foundation. Tours continued for the next five years, then TAGS dissolved under its long-running name and was reorganized as A Glimpse of Greenville run by Karen Cox and Kathy Vass. This lasted for about two years and then organized city tours ended just before the turn of the new millennium.

As TAGS/A Glimpse of Greenville was ending, I was developing art tours and training docents as curator of the Museum & Gallery at BJU. My love of Greenville grew daily as downtown’s revitalization hit its stride and Falls Park opened. Creating memorable, fun and educational museum experiences became a growing passion. I simultaneously realized there weren’t any city tours, so I started reading all I could about Greenville history and began to view it as another museum to create great experiences for people.

I developed a business plan, assembled relevant historic photos of key sites, formulated two historic walking tours, received encouragement from Mayor Knox White and city staff, and started up Greenville History Tours as the first commercial tour service in August 2006. Since then, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to personally give tours and lectures to nearly 100,000 visitors and locals alike with nine different thematic historic walking/driving tours and seven different food/drink tours.

Today’s Greenville has a wide-ranging diversity of thematic experiences including black history tours, food tours, art tours, architecture tours, winery tours, brewery tours, bike tours, Segway tours, ghost tours and interactive app tours. I’m very thankful to be a part of the tourism heritage of our great city.

John M. Nolan is owner of Greenville History Tours (greenvillehistorytours.com) and author of “A Guide to Historic Greenville, SC” and “Lost Restaurants of Greenville, SC.”