Genesis of Greensboro

This spot marks the approximate center of Guilford County as it was calculated in eighteen oh eight, the geometric logic that made Greensboro the county seat. The founders of what they called Greensborough needed a central location that would keep the courthouse equally accessible to the county's far corners, and surveyors settled on this ground. The town was named for General Nathanael Greene, whose forces fought the Battle of Guilford Courthouse here in seventeen eighty-one, a costly British tactical win that effectively began the end of the war in the South.

Greensborough grew slowly at first, a market town in the piedmont, then erupted into a textile and railroad hub in the nineteenth century. The genesis marker is a small footnote on a big story: a measurement that decided where a city would grow.