Glenwood

Glenwood, at the junction of State Highway 300 and Farm Road 726, eight miles southeast of Gilmer in southeastern Upshur County, was established as a plantation before the organization of the county in 1846. The plantation was abandoned before the Civil War , and during the last years of the war new settlers began to move to the area. A post office opened there in 1875 with Wiley Florence as postmaster; he apparently named the town. Just after the war a Glenwood Methodist Church was established, and around the same time a school began operating in the church. Charlie Christian opened a local boarding school in 1880. By 1885 Glenwood had a steam gristmill and cotton gin, a general store, two churches, and an estimated population of 100. The town continued to grow during the 1890s and early 1900s, and by 1914 it had reached a peak reported population of 250. After World War I , however, the community began to decline. Its post office closed, and by the mid-1930s Glenwood comprised only a church, a school, a store, and a number of houses. In 1940 its population was estimated at ninety. After World War II the Glenwood school was consolidated with that of East Mountain, and in the mid-1960s all that remained of Glenwood was a church, a store, a cemetery, and a few scattered houses. In 2000 Glenwood was a dispersed rural community with some 150 inhabitants and a community center on Farm Road 726.