Three railroad lines and the Erie Extension Canal before the railroad brought industry and culture to the early Greenville area.

But the settlement's first building -- and first business -- had nothing to do with transportation. It was a tavern. Tobias Shank operated his tavern on the west side of the Shenango River about 1830.

C. Earl Miller, retired editor of the Greenville Record-Argus, detailed local history in the 1988 sesquicentennial book.

In 1783, Revolutionary War veterans were offered 400 acres for settlement in the Greenville area. Much of the donated land was along the aptly named Donation Road in Greenville and Hempfield Township.

With no takers, two of the acres -- one west of the Shenango River and the other east -- were sold at low rates. In 1791, four pioneers, Joseph Keck, Andrew Christy, Daniel Klingensmith and Peter Klingensmith, ventured into what was to be Greenville from the Greensburg area of Westmoreland County.

The west side of the river, or West Greenville, saw quicker development than the east side. West Greenville was incorporated in 1837, with the entire community being incorporated in 1838. The Erie Extension Canal came through Greenville two years later.

The north-south canal meant commerce and communication for the growing community. Emerging industries then were grist mills, saw mills, tanneries, carriage houses and breweries.

In 1861, the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad introduced an east-west route through Greenville. It later would become the Erie Railroad and the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad.

The Erie and Pittsburgh Railroad, which ran north-south, became the nemesis of the Erie Extension Canal. It later became the Pennsylvania Railroad and then Penn Central.

As canal traffic declined, the Shenango and Allegheny Railroad laid its tracks along the canal route in 1869. It later would be Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad.

Because Greenville had become a center for the canal and railroad, Greenville thought it also should be the county seat. In 1861, Greenville launched a failed attempt to convince the state legislature to move the courthouse from Mercer to Greenville.

With the railroads came iron mills and bigger employers. Kimberly Rolling Mills, beginning in 1869, employed 500. Then came Greenville Iron Co. in 1870, W.S. Hodge Foundry in Hempfield Township in 1876 and Pearce Woolen Mill in 1883.

Shelby Tube Co. opened in 1898 where Greenville Steel Car Co. would open its car assembly plant about 1910. In 1908, National Tube Co. took over Shelby Tube and moved it to Ellwood City. Greenville Steel Car would later assemble railroad cars.

Besides jobs, the railroad also ushered in culture and education to Greenville. The railroad brought productions to the Laird Opera House in what now is downtown Greenville. In 1871, Thiel College was moved from Phillipsburg, Pa., to Greenville.