Greenville SC Trivia
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58 free Greenville SC trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free Greenville SC trivia questions with answers. Greenville, South Carolina went from Cherokee hunting ground to a Loyalist's plantation, from a village called Pleasantburg to the 'Textile Center of the South', and then, after the mills closed, into one of the most admired downtown revivals in the country. This quiz covers all of it: Vardry McBee and the founding, the 19 mills, the Poinsett Hotel and the 1820 stone bridge, the Camperdown Bridge coming down and the Liberty Bridge going up, the Swamp Rabbit Trail, Unity Park and the zoo. It also takes in the teams (the Drive, the Swamp Rabbits, the Triumph), the employers that remade the Upstate (Michelin, BMW, the F-16 line), the colleges, and the people who came from here, from Shoeless Joe Jackson and Jesse Jackson to Kevin Garnett, Charles Townes, Joanne Woodward and Peabo Bryson. Easy questions open it and the later ones will test people who have lived here for decades, so it works for a bar quiz on Main Street, a classroom or a newcomer's welcome night. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia entry on the place, team or person, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Where does Greenville rank among South Carolina's cities by population, according to the 2020 census?
Sixth
Greenville ranked sixth in 2020, behind Charleston, Columbia, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Rock Hill; its metro area of roughly 920,000 people is the largest in South Carolina.
Q 02Which waterway runs through the middle of downtown Greenville?
Reedy River
The Reedy River, a tributary of the Saluda, flows through downtown; Richard Pearis's grist mill at Reedy River Falls in the West End, built around 1770, marks the city's birthplace.
Q 03Before colonists arrived, the land that became Greenville was the hunting ground of which Native nation?
Cherokee
The Cherokee hunted this land; in the 1777 Treaty of DeWitt's Corner they ceded nearly all their South Carolina territory, including present-day Greenville, to the state.
Q 04What was the village established in 1797 by Lemuel J. Alston called before it took the name Greenville?
Pleasantburg
Alston laid out the village as Pleasantburg in 1797 on his Prospect Hill estate, but residents called it Greenville and that name stuck; Vardry McBee later bought Alston's land and mansion.
Q 05Who is considered the 'father of Greenville' for donating land for churches, academies and a cotton mill?
Vardry McBee
Vardry McBee gave land for churches, academies and a cotton mill and backed the Greenville & Columbia Railroad, which reached the town in 1853, earning him the title 'father of Greenville'.
Q 06Which school did McBee help bring to Greenville from Winnsboro in 1851?
Furman
Furman University, founded in 1826 and named for Baptist pastor Richard Furman, relocated from Winnsboro to Greenville in 1851, a move Vardry McBee helped arrange.
Q 07Greenville County, formed in 1786, is usually said to be named for which Revolutionary general?
Nathanael Greene
Nathanael Greene, who led the Continental Army's southern campaign, is the usual namesake; Greenville County was created in 1786 from land the Cherokee ceded in 1777, though some credit settler Isaac Green.
Q 08By 1915, Greenville's cotton mills had earned it which nickname?
Textile Center of the South
By 1915 Greenville's mills had made it the 'Textile Center of the South'; that year the city staged its first Southern Textile Exposition, housed from 1917 in Textile Hall.
Q 09Which 1882 mill on the Reedy River was restored as part of Greenville's Peace Center?
Huguenot Mill
The Huguenot Mill, a plaid-weaving mill built in 1882 on the Reedy River, was restored as part of the Peace Center, where its upper floor became the Huguenot Loft event space.
Q 10The Mansion House was demolished in 1925 and replaced by which downtown hotel?
Westin Poinsett
The Poinsett Hotel opened on the Mansion House site in 1925 and, after a late-1990s restoration, reopened in 2000 as the Westin Poinsett, a Main Street landmark.
Q 11South Carolina's oldest bridge, an 1820 stone span near Greenville, may be by which Washington Monument architect?
Robert Mills
Robert Mills, South Carolina's state engineer and later architect of the Washington Monument, is usually credited with the Poinsett Bridge, an 1820 Gothic-arched stone span over Little Gap Creek, protected as a heritage preserve.
Q 12A 1946 Greenville explosion that killed six and injured over 150 involved a tank of what?
Propane
A leaking propane tank at the Ideal Laundry exploded on November 19, 1946, killing six people and damaging hundreds of buildings; the blast was reportedly heard some 50 miles away.
Q 13Bob Jones University moved to Greenville in 1947 from which city?
Q 21The Peace Center, opened in 1990, takes its name from what?
A local family who gave $10 million
It was built on the site of three derelict factories, one of which made wagons for the Confederate Army.
Q 22Which mayonnaise brand was created in Greenville in 1917 by a woman selling sandwiches to soldiers?
Duke's
Eugenia Duke began selling sandwiches to Camp Sevier soldiers in 1917; her sugar-free, egg-yolk-rich Duke's Mayonnaise was sold to the C.F. Sauer Company in 1929 and is produced in nearby Mauldin.
Q 23Bon Secours Wellness Arena opened in 1998 carrying the name of which grocery chain?
Bi-Lo
Cleveland, Tennessee
Bob Jones College began near Panama City, Florida, in 1927, moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1933 after near-bankruptcy, and relocated to Greenville as Bob Jones University in 1947.
Q 14Bob Jones Jr. built the university's art museum by first collecting which style, cheap and unfashionable after WWII?
Italian Baroque
Bob Jones Jr. began buying Italian Baroque paintings in 1951, when the style was out of favor and cheap; the Museum & Gallery grew to more than 400 European works from the 14th to 19th centuries.
Q 15Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport opened in 1962 near which town?
Greer
GSP opened in October 1962 near Greer, midway between the two rival cities; textile magnate Roger Milliken pushed them to share one airport, and its field is named for him.
Q 16In 2024 GSP was South Carolina's third-busiest airport, behind Charleston and which other?
Myrtle Beach International
Myrtle Beach International, fed by Grand Strand tourism, carried more than 3.5 million passengers in 2024, ahead of GSP's roughly 3 million; Charleston led the state with over 6 million.
Q 17Which tire maker was persuaded to move its North American headquarters to Greenville in the 1980s?
Michelin
Michelin, which had opened its first US plants in the Upstate in 1975, moved its North American headquarters to Greenville in the 1980s, and its arrival kicked off a wave of foreign investment in the region.
Q 18Which BMW roadster, launched in 1995, was the first model built only at the Spartanburg plant?
Z3
The BMW Z3 roadster went into production at Spartanburg in 1995 and was built nowhere else, making it the plant's first exclusive model; it appeared that year in the Bond film GoldenEye.
Q 19Which BMW SUV, the company's first, went into production at Spartanburg in 1999?
X5
The BMW X5, the company's first SUV, began production at Spartanburg in 1999; the plant later added the X3, X4, X6, X7 and XM to its lines.
Q 20The former Donaldson Air Force Base, now a technology park, hosts production of which fighter jet?
F-16 Fighting Falcon
Lockheed Martin moved its F-16 Fighting Falcon production line to the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center on the former base in 2019; the first Greenville-built F-16 flew in January 2023.
It opened in September 1998 as the Bi-Lo Center, named for the grocery chain founded in Greenville in 1961, replacing the demolished Greenville Memorial Auditorium; it became Bon Secours Wellness Arena in 2013.
Q 24Falls Park was founded in 1967 when which group reclaimed 26 acres of old mill land?
Carolina Foothills Garden Club
The Carolina Foothills Garden Club reclaimed 26 acres of abandoned mill land at the Reedy River falls in 1967; the city's major renovation, finished in 2004, made the park downtown's centerpiece.
Q 25What is structurally unusual about the Liberty Bridge in Falls Park?
Its cables are on one side only
The 355-foot curved span, designed by Rosales + Partners, won the Arthur G. Hayden medal for innovative design in 2005.
Q 26Which structure blocked the view of the falls for four decades until it was torn down in 2002?
Camperdown Bridge
The Camperdown Bridge, a four-lane road bridge built in 1960 directly over Reedy River Falls, was demolished in 2002; the Liberty Bridge opened in its place in 2004 and Falls Park became the city's postcard view.
Q 27Who became mayor of Greenville in December 1995?
Knox White
Knox White, an attorney, was sworn in as mayor in December 1995; his years in office saw the Camperdown Bridge come down, the Liberty Bridge rise, and Unity Park open in 2022.
Q 28The Swamp Rabbit Trail follows the bed of which defunct railroad?
Greenville & Northern Railway
The Greenville & Northern Railway, nicknamed the 'Swamp Rabbit' line, ran north from Greenville until the 1990s; the county bought its roadbed and the paved trail opened in 2009.
Q 29The Swamp Rabbit Trail runs north from downtown Greenville to which town?
Travelers Rest
The trail follows the old rail line north to Travelers Rest, whose downtown revived around it after the 2009 opening; a Furman study found local businesses reporting sales gains of 30 to 85 percent.
Q 30The Greenville Drive's 2006 stadium replicates the dimensions of which major-league park?
Fenway Park
Its 'Greenville Monster' in left field is 30 feet high to Fenway's 37, complete with a manual scoreboard, and there is a Pesky's Pole in right.