John Whiteside remembers playing at Mayberry Park like it was yesterday.
While growing up in Greenville’s Greasy Corner neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s, he spent many days walking down the railroad tracks to play baseball with his friends at the park.
“We went down on Saturdays and Sundays. When school was out, we almost went down there every day to the park,” Whiteside said. “When school was in, we had Little League games. There’d be games three, four times a week.”
Located west of downtown Greenville, Mayberry Park served as the city’s segregated park for Black children. The park, which consisted of an athletic field, a simple playground and a small community center, was a haven for many children within the surrounding neighborhoods.
“It really was the only place that we had a park that we were able to enjoy,” said City Councilwoman Lillian Brock Flemming, who grew up in the surrounding Southernside neighborhood.
Longtime residents, including Whiteside, have pushed for the preservation of Mayberry Park’s legacy. With help from the owner of Greenville’s minor league baseball team, the city hopes to act in the near future to restore the historic ballpark.
A segregated history
The 15 acres of land that would become Mayberry Park was purchased by the city of Greenville in 1924. The park officially opened a year later. Though the city committed additional funds to install bleachers and playground equipment, care of Mayberry Park soon began to decline.
The city created an outdoor police shooting range using a 50-foot strip of the park’s land less than a decade after the park opened. Whiteside said he remembers when police officers would practice shooting while he and his friends were playing baseball nearby.
“When they would leave, we’d go and dig the lead out of the ground and the telegram post and take it to the junkyard to sell,” Whiteside said. “We knew back then if you made 15 or 25 cents from a little bag of lead, that was pretty good.”
In 1938, seven acres of the park was given to Joseph Cambria, a Baltimore businessman, to create a new baseball stadium called Meadowbrook Park. Local African American community leaders at the time, including The Rev. E.B. Holloway, spoke out against taking land away from Mayberry Park. The city put the issue on the back burner once World War II began, according to John Nolan, owner of Greenville History Tours.
Meadowbrook Park sat side by side with Mayberry Park, separated by a patch of land the city used as a dumping ground.
“It’s a separate-but-equal doctrine,” said Mike Chibbaro, author of “Voices from Meadowbrook Park,” which details the history of the park. “All Black children have one place in Greenville County they can go to — that’s separate but it sure wasn’t equal.”
While Meadowbrook Park was built for an all-white professional baseball team, Chibbaro said local all-Black baseball teams, including the Sterling High Tigers and the Greenville Black Spinners, were able to use the park on specific days.
Whiteside, who played shortstop for the Sterling High baseball team, said it was a highlight for him and his teammates to play on the field. The high school team would practice at Mayberry Park and play home games at Meadowbrook Park.
“It had lights and manicured ground,” Whiteside said. “The ground was much better — you didn’t have to deal with all the rocks and holes and things we had to deal with in Mayberry. The city didn’t really keep the ground up the way they should have.”
On Feb. 14, 1972, a fire burned down Meadowbrook Park. Chibarro said the park remained for several years with only a few charred remnants standing.
“It was kind of a wasteland,” Chibarro said. “All the while, Mayberry was still there.”
For years, Mayberry Park served as a community gathering place for the surrounding neighborhoods and communities including Southernside, West Greenville, Sterling and Greasy Corner.
“We knew the injustice we were facing, even when we got to play in big Meadowbrook Park,” Whiteside said. “We took what we had and made it work.”
Preserving a legacy
To honor the history of the area, and of the segregated Mayberry and Meadowbrook parks, Greenville began to construct a new “united” park in 2020.
The 60-acre Unity Park was built on a site along the Reedy River that includes the two historic parks and opened in 2022. Costing $66 million to construct, the park features playgrounds, a splash pad, basketball courts, expansive green spaces, restored wetlands and a welcome center. Several promised additions to Unity Park still need to be completed — including the restoration of Mayberry Park.
“From the earliest days of planning for the park, the neighborhood made it a priority to maintain the identity of Mayberry and the park’s history and for there to be a way to tell that story in the park,” Mayor Knox White said.
The site of the park remains a mostly untouched section of Unity Park, located behind the basketball courts. It is an empty field surrounded by ballpark lights. But there is a plan to revive the park as a ball field, and the city is currently seeking proposals for the project’s design and construction.
The new baseball field will be sized to little league dimensions and named Mayberry Field. Plans for the new field may include grandstand bleachers, a press box, batting cages, dugouts, bullpen and concessions stands.
Greenville Drive owner Craig Brown and his wife, Vicki, have made significant financial contributions to the project.
“There’s a lot of rich history of baseball being played in this part of town,” Brown said. “Our family is very interested in helping the city build a really nice little league field, which we need more of in Unity Park to make sure the park is active and programmed in a very robust manner.”
Bill Fox, senior account director at the Hughes Agency, said the city is working on designing the new Mayberry Field with the Brown family’s feedback. The Hughes Agency was contracted by the city to raise private funds for Unity Park, a total that has reached $17 million to date for amenities such as Mayberry Field and the planned Thomas and Vivian A. Wong Honor Tower.
The city is still finalizing cost estimates and a budget for the new ballpark. Construction is expected to begin before the end of 2023.
Brown said the ultimate goal is to make Mayberry Field a source of pride for the entire community.
“We’re wanting to use the game of baseball as a way to tell the story of our community,” Brown said, “and how it’s taken our community from the past and has been one of those elements that really unites our community for the future.”
Timeline
- 1924: The city purchased 15 acres to build a segregated park for Black children
- 1925: Mayberry Park opened
- 1938: The city gave away half of Mayberry Park’s land to build a new minor league baseball field
- 1972: Meadowbrook Park burned down
- 2022: Unity Park opens on the site of the two historic parks
- 2023: Construction of the new Mayberry Field is planned to begin by the end of the year
A multiuse park
Mayberry Park’s athletic field was used by the students at Sterling High School to play football, baseball and softball and host track and field meets.
Fun fact
The city purchased the original 15 acres of land for Mayberry Park for $15,000. Today, this is equivalent to more than $200,000.
