For more historical information, view the approved Warnersville Heritage Community Application.

Warnersville was recognized as Greensboro's first Heritage Community in 2015. Named for Pennsylvania Quaker Yardley Warner, it was the first planned African American community in the area. Warner purchased more than 35 acres just south of the limits of Greensboro around 1865. He divided the land into plots and made them available to "freedmen."

Harmon Unthank was one of the first landowners and became the unofficial mayor of Warnersville in the 1870s. Like many others he started a business; his was making coffins and repairing stoves. He also became involved in local and state politics, which was possible for blacks before the Jim Crow era.

Warnersville grew throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were several churches in the community including some of Greensboro's oldest congregations such as St. Matthews United Methodist Church (founded in 1864) and New Zion Baptist Church (1897), as well as schools such as Ashe Street School and Graded School Number 2 for Colored Children (1898-1922), Jacksonville School (1909-1954), and J.C. Price School (1922-1983). Many black-owned businesses thrived in the community, especially along Ashe Street.

Warnersville was virtually cleared by the federal Urban Renewal Program in the 1960s.

In November 2014, the Greensboro History Museum opened its exhibit on Warnersville: "Our Home, Our Neighborhood, Our Stories."

The exhibit closed in 2016. See images of the gallery here.

Warnersville: Our Home, Our Neighborhood, Our Stories

Greensboro History Museum 

November 23, 2014 - February 14, 2016