The Belleau Wood subdivision was established in name by the Sullivan Group which had purchased a large tract of the Ethel Coombs farm in 1979. It was so-named in honor of the World-War-1 French battle site served by Sullivan relatives. The first homes built were exhibition homes, and four of them were constructed on Pebble Creek Drive, paralleling Wilson-Downing Road, and was the first completely paved street after Belleau Wood Drive itself. A large number of BW tracts were sold during 1980 after all the neighborhood avenues had been paved.

Belleau Wood is constructed upon a limestone ridge, very rocky below a thin layer of soil. Many house foundations had to be dynamite blasted to make level building sites. Underground water sources could be found trickling from blast sites, including street intersections, and in wet weather, a near continuous flow from the hillside which later would become Troy Trail.

Belleau Wood Drive originally began at Wilson-Downing Road and dead-ended at top of the hill, near the area where Sayre Christian Village is located today. The original home of Ethel Coombes existed at top of the hill and Forest Green Drive was routed to include that farm house, and it has been continuously occupied since the land was sold. Her farm spring house was behind the home further down the hill, and is still located near the entrance to Spring House Apartments. Belleau Wood Drive itself was continued from top of the hill in a gentle curve connecting to an intersection with Man-O-War Blvd, and continued on as Waterford Drive in another neighborhood so-named. It was 1983 before Man-O-War Blvd was constructed. It did not take long at all for commercial businesses to open in Tates Creek Shopping Center, including the very welcome Kroger Store.

Aside from the exhibition housing on Pebble Creek, the first lot to be sold in Belleau Wood occurred November of 1980. Construction of that house at 604 Green Ridge Court began in March 1981 by Samuel Shaw, architect and builder, a cousin of the present property owners who are still living in their home since that day. Others worked quickly to construct homes on Green Ridge Court, and up and down Belleau Wood Drive. By summer of 1982 most housing lots had been sold, and many of those had finished homes by Fall of 1982. In the earliest days, it was pleasant to sit in lawn furniture and view the 2-lane Tates Creek Road stretching out toward town, to be lost at the Thornton’s gas station with the large American Flag flying, as Tates Creek continued on downhill toward Circle 4 and Lansdowne Shopping Center.