Page 21 - Greensboro, NC-GSO 2040 Comprehensive Plan

Greensboro is located at the top of the Cape Fear River Watershed, and its
water supply is dependent on rain water captured in reservoirs. From 1998
through 2002, the City suffered historic drought conditions that caused
economic and personal hardship for many of its residents. Randleman Lake
came online in 2010, guaranteeing the City’s water supply for the next 50 years.

Arts and Culture
Greensboro has long been known for its arts. William Sydney Porter, better
known as short story writer O. Henry, was born in Greensboro in 1862. In the
1870s and 80s, Albion Tourgée was a prolific and popular novelist, who, some
scholars have argued, was one of the most important American writers of his
day. His book “A Fool’s Errand” was based in part on his experiences living in
Greensboro after the Civil War. During the 1950s and 1960s Woman’s College,
now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was a haven for some of
America’s finest poets and novelists, and visiting writers included Robert Frost,
Flannery O’Connor, Robert Penn Warren, and Eudora Welty.

The Magnolia House Motel, now restored and on the National Register of
Historic Places, accommodated traveling African-Americans during the era
of segregation. The Motel was included in the “Green Book” that listed safe
businesses for traveling African-Americans. Many accomplished musicians,
artists, and athletes stayed there, as did the families of students attending
Bennett College.
Greensboro has a long history as a seat of higher education. New Garden
Boarding School, now Guilford College, was chartered by the Quaker Society
of Friends in 1834 and was the first coeducational institution in the South and
third in the United States. In 1838, Greensboro College became the first
chartered college for women in North Carolina. Bennett College was founded in
1873 as a school for freedmen and is one of only two historically black colleges
for women in the nation. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
was started in 1891 as the State Normal and Industrial College and is still
remembered fondly as “WC” for Woman’s College of the University of North
Carolina. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, now
the largest historically black college or university (HBCU) in the nation, was
established in 1891 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored
Race and was the first land grant college for people of color in North Carolina.
Guilford Technical Community College opened in 1958 on the site of the
Guilford County Tuberculosis Sanatorium and is the third largest in the North
Carolina Community College System. Total enrollment for the city’s colleges and
universities is estimated at over 60,000.

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