Greenfield Lake and Park.

During the Depression, construction workers built the five mile drive around the lake. It was completed in July, 1931, as part of a Works Project Administration(W.P.A.) attempt to put a portion of the numerous area unemployed to work. In colonial times, the area which became Greenfield Lake and Park, was a rice plantation owned by Dr. Samuel Green. In the mid-nineteenth century, Thomas Cowan McIlhenny purchased the property and it became known as McIlhenny's Mill Pond. In 1918, the North Carolina Sorosis (a local women's organization) advocated that the city of Wilmington buy what was then called Lakeside Park, for a public park. In 1925, the sale was finalized. With the aid of Dr. Houston Moore and the devotion of James E. L. Wade, the Commissioner of Public Works at the time, thousands of azaleas and other flowering plants were put around the lake. Greenfield Lake has become one of the places that help Wilmington make a claim as the City of Millions of Azaleas.

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