Greenville (Mississippi)

Greenville is a city in Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 30,000 in 2020, making it the ninth largest city in the state. It is the county seat of Washington County.

Understand

Greenville was named after American Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. Greenville is on the eastern bank of Lake Ferguson, an oxbow lake left from an old channel of the Mississippi River.

Get in

By plane

Mid Delta Regional Airport, northeast of downtown Greenville, serves the city and the Mississippi Delta region. It has commercial air service provided by Boutique Air to Dallas and Atlanta.

By car

U.S. Highway 82, U.S. Highway 61 and the Great River Road (Mississippi Highway 1) are the main transportation arteries through the Greenville area. U.S. Highway 82 is a major part of the Mississippi Delta's transportation network, as it connects to Interstate 55 and other major four-lane highways. In 2010, a new four-lane Greenville Bridge crossed the Mississippi River south of Greenville into Lake Village, Arkansas. This $206-million cable-stayed span, the longest of its kind in the continental United States, replaced the now-demolished Benjamin G. Humphreys Bridge as the primary bridge.

Get around

Rental cars are available at the airport. Car is the primary way to travel around Greenville. Limited taxi services operate throughout the city but are not common to find. There is also a bus station on Highway 82, although it is only open for a few hours each day and sends and receives a very limited number of buses. Walking around the downtown area can also an efficient way to get around, although the downtown area of Greenville is notoriously unsafe and crime-ridden even in the day.

See

• 1 Winterville Mounds, 2415 MS-1 (a few miles north of Greenville), ☏ +1 662 334-4684. dawn to dusk daily. Earthwork monuments of Plaquemine Mississippian origin. (updated Aug 2021)
• 2 Birthplace of Kermit The Frog Museum, 415 S Deer Creek Dr E, Leland, MS (east of Greenville), ☏ +1 662 686-7383. M-Sa 10AM-4PM, closed Su. See where it all happened, Kermit's birthplace on Deer Creek and little pond, the limelight, etc, with a tribute to Jim Henson's boyhood on the Delta as well. (updated Aug 2021)
• 3 Highway 61 Blues Museum, 307 N Broad St, Leland, ☏ +1 662 686-7646. Displaying exhibits pertaining to the Delta Blues scene. (updated Aug 2021)
• Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum, 304 N Broad St Leland, ☏ +1 662-820-9555. Minor wildlife museum or trophy hunters' braggadocio venue possibly. (updated Aug 2021)

Do

• 1 Warfield Point Park This park by Greenville on Warfield Point Park Road is a great place to picnic and watch the Mississippi River from the viewing tower. There is also an old fishing boat and hiking trails.
• Nelco Movie Theater The Nelco Movie Theater at 600 Cinema Way (right off of Highway 1 South) is a great place to watch movies and a real hot spot for Greenville citizens.
• Delta Center Stage Theater A historic performance theater at 300 South Main Street. A schedule of upcoming plays may be found on the theater's website.
• Casinos Greenville is known for its great casinos which attracts many visitors:
  • 2 Harlow's Casino Resort & Hotel, 4280 Harlows Blvd.
  • 3 Trop Casino, 199 North Lakefront Road
• Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge in Hollandale, a small town some minutes outside of Greenville. The Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge is a major point of interest to anyone in the Greenville area. The scenery of the area is stunning. Opportunities to see many interesting and increasingly rare animals native to the area abound, such as the American alligator, American black bear, bobcat, white-tailed deer, and otter, as well as many birds such as various species of heron, ibis, egret, and duck.
• Other Greenville has many other venues including a racetrack, a rodeo, a YMCA, the Delta Blues Festival, and the Winterville Indian Mounds.

Buy

Greenville Mall, 1651 Highway 1 South. Contains shops and an arcade with good shopping offered.

Eat

• 1 Doe's Eat Place: Greenville's most popular eating establishment, at 502 Nelson Street, really breathes authenticity and serves homemade steaks and tamales that are known throughout the south to be some of the best around. The prices are high.
• 2 Sherman's Restaurant: A popular Greenville restaurant serving seafood and steak and many other good dining choices, at 1400 South Main Street.
• Yamato Japanese Steak House: A restaurant serving Japanese food and sushi, in the Wal-Mart Shopping Center on Highway 1 South.
• Shipley's Doughnuts: Serves a wide variety of homemade doughnuts at 1401 Hwy 1 South.
• Rivals: A sports bar offering great food and service, at 2309 Highway 1 South.

Other

Greenville has many other restaurants including dine-in Chinese, Mexican, barbecue, family-owned diners, fast food and pizza chains such as Burger King, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Captain D's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeye's, Church's Chicken, Subway, Quizno's, Pizza Hut, and Domino's. Greenville is also noted for its places where one can buy good hot tamales.

Sleep

• 1 Hotel 27, 211 S Walnut St, ☏ +1 662-702-3681. A fairly classy property behind the levee of Lake Ferguson that almost looks like it could have been transposed from the Napa Valley. It includes a complimentary breakfast. 

Stay safe

Crime

The town is notorious for its bad crime, often considered to be among the worst in the country. The downtown area in particular and much of the town north of Highway 82 (this highway is often seen as a sort of "dividing line" by many) is continuously ridden with theft, assault and other crimes, sometimes even in daylight and in popular areas such as near the library or churches. If you must go into more dangerous parts of Greenville, do so in the day, and be accompanied with other people; it is less dangerous for a woman to go along with men. The most that can be done to protect yourself is to use the most common sense as possible, such as always locking your car and never leaving valuable items inside, staying away from dark and deserted areas and not taking dangerous routes when it isn't necessary, and not drawing too much attention to oneself (i.e., wearing expensive jewelry or wearing revealing clothes). While police have made some attempts to monitor and patrol downtown Greenville more, many residents complain that the town's police force is still very ineffective. Much of south Greenville - for example, along Highway 1 South near the Nelco Movie Theater and Country Club, South Main Street near the Bowmanor Subdivision and Bayou Road, and the area surrounding Cypress Road - is considered to be generally safe and inhabited by middle- to upper-class families, although some crime occasionally drifts into these areas as well.

Racism

Greenville is a town of ever-present and prominent racial discord, despite moderate progress since the 1950s. Many older, more upper-class whites (a small yet powerful minority) in particular still harbor views of varying degrees of racism, although this phenomenon is significantly less common in most middle-aged or younger whites (yet still very pronounced in others). Socializing and mixing with blacks too much could be discouraged by some middle-aged white parents today, though it would have been a lot more common a few decades ago.

Go next

• Cleveland
• Indianola

Routes through Greenville

Texarkana ← El Dorado ← Jct ←	W  E	→ Jct N S → Indianola → Greenwood
Hope ← Warren ← Jct ←	W  E	→ Jct S → Cleveland → Oxford