Centered on the Wesley United Methodist Church (1922, Frank R. McGeoy) at 800 Howard Street, this neighborhood in the city’s southwest quadrant developed in the late nineteenth century as rural African Americans moved into town. The twelve-block area known as the Henry Addition was built up after the Columbus and Greenville Railroad arrived in 1886, bringing industries and jobs typically filled by African Americans. Shotgun houses and bungalows on narrow lots define the streets. Set close to the sidewalk, their porches or stoops repeat rhythmically down the streets on both sides. To increase their rental income, property owners packed more shotgun houses along interior alleys inside the city blocks. The community’s earliest surviving houses (610 and 612 Howard and 311 W. Gibbs streets) dating to around 1910, follow a side-gabled form akin to rural tenant houses. A few larger houses dot the neighborhood, most prominently the c. 1910 L-front house at 606 Howard. Small stores on or near street corners met basic needs, such as the brick store with a canted corner at 728 Howard (c. 1930) and the c. 1925 frame building at 701 Fulton Street.
The principal landmark is the red brick and cast-stone Wesley United Methodist Church. The congregation was established in 1870 as Greenwood Colored Church on Washington Street downtown but moved to this location in 1891. After that second sanctuary burned, church leaders hired Frank R. McGeoy to design their third building; G. G. Mitchell was the supervising architect. McGeoy’s sturdy Gothic Revival style is emphasized by a square corner tower and a buttressed central entrance. A gymnasium in the side wing was an unusual amenity for an African American church, but among other things it served for many years as the only gym for high school basketball games. In the 1960s, civil rights meetings took place in the church, and it was the starting point for Greenwood’s first voter registration march to the courthouse (DR48) on March 27, 1963.