For a short period at the turn of the twentieth century, Greenmont was not merely a neighborhood beside Morgantown. It was an incorporated West Virginia town with its own elected municipal government.
The 1899 incorporation vote
The Greenmont Historic District National Register nomination records a community vote on incorporation held February 18, 1899. Forty-two votes were cast in favor and seven against. The county court certified the result on February 20, establishing the legal foundation for the new town.
That vote is one of the clearest windows we have into Greenmont’s early civic identity. Incorporation meant residents were choosing to organize municipal affairs locally rather than simply remaining an unincorporated settlement on Morgantown’s edge.
Greenmont elects its own government
Town officers were elected in March 1899. J. A. Powell was elected mayor, while W. E. Kerns served as recorder. The town council included Lee Gidley, John Smith, Frank Selby, Pierce Hess, and Judd Zinn.
Those names turn a line in a historic nomination into something much more tangible: Greenmont residents had ballots, offices to fill, a mayor, a recorder, and council members charged with governing a municipality of their own. This was a functioning civic community, not simply a place name on the outskirts of another town.
What did the town look like?
The incorporated period came at a time when the area was rapidly becoming more urban. Building lots, new homes, transportation connections, employment, neighborhood businesses, and institutions were reshaping the community. Greenmont’s municipal government existed inside that larger transition from semi-rural land to a compact working neighborhood.
The association’s history project will continue looking for minutes, ordinances, election records, tax records, maps, newspaper notices, and family materials that can tell us more about what the town government actually did during its brief life. The National Register nomination gives us the essential framework; local archives and resident contributions may eventually fill in the day-to-day story.
A civic identity that outlasted the charter
Greenmont’s time as an independent town lasted only until 1901, but the fact that residents incorporated and elected their own government is central to understanding the neighborhood’s identity. Greenmont has a long tradition of people organizing around the place they call home.
That history also gives new meaning to the work of today’s Greenmont Neighborhood Association. The organization is not a continuation of the 1899 town government, but both chapters reflect the same basic idea: residents taking responsibility for their community, preserving its identity, and making sure Greenmont has a voice in the larger city around it.