J. Glenn Stanley, an ardent camellia enthusiast and editor of The Greenville Advocate, promoted Greenville as “The Camellia City,” and the city’s first Camellia Show was held at his antebellum Henry-Beeland-Stanley home in 1937. City officials, civic groups, garden clubs, and individuals joined the effort by planting camellias widely, and local gardeners including Stanley, Steindorff, Beeland, Jernigan, Stabler, Ryan, Hendrick, Thagard, Langford, and Fox began propagating them. Eleven Greenville varieties are registered with the American Camellia Society. In 1938, the Greenville City Council adopted the Camellia Japonica as the Official City Flower, and State Representative Lamont Glass of Greenville helped secure its designation as the Official State Flower by act of the Alabama Legislature on August 26, 1959; the fiftieth anniversary of the camellia as the State Flower was celebrated in 2009. Greenville, the county seat of Butler County, was established in 1821 by early settlers from South Carolina. Drawn by abundant natural resources and a strategic location along the Old Federal Road, settlers shaped the commercial, agricultural, and recreational life of the area. In Butler County, the Federal Road followed Bartram’s Trail, an ancient Indian path traveled by naturalist William Bartram in 1775. Early residents included Dunklin, Herbert, Cook, Bolling, Judge, Parmer, Caldwell, Black, Pickens, Graydon, Burnett, Hutchinson, Jones, and Waters. The railroad was completed in 1861, enabling establishment of a Confederate Hospital. Greenville flourished in the 1870s and 1880s, and by 1900 it had thriving businesses, a streetcar line, electricity, telephone service, an opera house, several colleges, and many active churches. The city has maintained its historic integrity with hundreds of homes and buildings on national and state landmarks registers, including the Ritz Theatre, restored to its 1930s Art Deco splendor, and its small-town atmosphere remained central to its culture after it was named “Best Small Town in America” in 2001.