Begun as Sandy Ford in 1850, the community had Samuel Williams as its first postmaster in 1854. Known as Station 5 on the Pensacola-Georgia Railroad, it took the name Greenville, after Greenville, South Carolina, in the 1860s. Elijah Hays helped its expansion after 1876. It was incorporated in 1907, with W.D. Griffin as its first mayor. An orange-producing center before 1895, it later depended chiefly on timber, cattle, and flue-cured tobacco.