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Historic photograph available from the Greenville Historical Society
Between the Ottaray Hotel and Springwood Cemetery was a tract of land that was once part of the property of Waddy Thompson (1769-1845). When Greenville built a new courthouse in 1822, Waddy and Eliza Thompson bought the old wooden courthouse and moved it to the North Main Street location. With the addition of two wings, it became their new home. In 1925 North Main acquired two new motion picture theaters. Several months before W. H. Keith opened the Rivoli, the Carolina Theater opened on the Thompson Home site. The Carolina was built by the same company that owned the Ottaray Hotel next door. On both sides of the theater, space for small stores was constructed.
[From “Remembering Greenville: Photographs from the Coxe Collection” by Jeffrey R. Willis.]
Today the Ogeltree building occupies the site where the Carolina Theater once stood and the four-lane Beattie Place runs where the Ottaray Hotel once stood.
