On February 2, 2005, the Greenmont Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The designation formally recognized a neighborhood whose historical importance is visible not only in individual buildings, but in its street pattern, development history, institutions, commerce, and social life.
What the historic district covers
The City of Morgantown describes the district as roughly bounded by Arlington, Front, Conn, White Avenue, Posten Avenue, Kingwood Street, and Decker Avenue. Within that area is a remarkably layered record of how Greenmont changed from earlier landholdings into an incorporated town and then into a dense Morgantown neighborhood.
More than architecture
The nomination is valuable because it does not treat Greenmont simply as a collection of attractive old houses. It documents the neighborhood through themes that include settlement, community planning and development, commerce, transportation, education, social history, work, and the experiences of the people who lived there.
That broader approach fits Greenmont. The neighborhood’s significance lies in the relationship between modest homes, local businesses, streets, institutions, workplaces, transportation routes, and the many communities that shared the same small geographic area.
A 205-page record - and a starting point
The National Register nomination is extensive, with property descriptions, maps, photographs, architectural information, historical narrative, and documentation assembled to establish the district’s significance. It is one of the strongest anchor sources available for the association’s own history project.
But an official nomination can never contain everything a neighborhood remembers. It was written for a particular preservation purpose at a particular moment. Residents know stories, people, businesses, nicknames, family connections, and everyday experiences that may not appear in the formal record at all.
Preservation as a living practice
Historic recognition does not mean freezing Greenmont in time or pretending that every period of its history was simple. Preservation is most useful when it helps a community understand change: what survives, what was lost, who was included in the record, whose stories still need to be recovered, and how the neighborhood can continue evolving without losing the character that makes it recognizable.
That is why the Greenmont Neighborhood Association is pairing archival sources with reader contributions. Photographs, documents, corrections, oral histories, and family memories can be reviewed alongside official records so this website becomes a growing neighborhood archive rather than a static summary written once and forgotten.
Why the designation matters today
The 2005 listing gives Greenmont a documented historical foundation and national recognition. The association’s goal is to make that record accessible to ordinary neighbors - not by making everyone search through a long nomination PDF, but by turning verified research into readable chapters that remain connected to their original sources.