The iconic Wyche Pavilion in downtown Greenville was built in the mid-1800s by a contemporary of the Garrauxs, the subjects of my book, “When He Was Gone.”
The big, brick structure was built as a paint shop for the highly successful Gower, Cox and Markley Carriage Company (the wooden building in the foreground). The carriage company was Greenville’s biggest employer during the Civil War and when the Garrauxs arrived in 1873.
The carriage company closed in 1911, pressured out of existence by the arrival of the automobile.
In 1923, the building became the first production factory for Duke’s mayonnaise, another great Greenville story.