Great Depression-Early 1970s

Holly Springs Rebounds

From its earliest years Holly Springs has been home to several churches and civic organizations including the Baptists, Methodists, and Disciples of Christ, the Masonic Lodge, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and the Women’s Betterment Association. 

The Bank of Holly Springs has the dubious honor of being the first bank in North Carolina to fail before the Great Depression. But Holly Springs has a resilient spirit and bounced back from this set back. 

A new bank was recruited in the 1970s, which spurred the creation of a police department, a requirement of the bank for relocating. The brick building behind Town Hall was once used as the police station. It was built in the early 1900s as the Seagraves Drugstore and has also served as a general mercantile, a dress shop, an auto parts store, and a co-working station before being remodeled to be the Town Hall Annex. 

Although there were Town wells for public use as early as 1909, the first true water system was opened under Mayor I. M. Gattman in 1968, with Mayor Norris beginning the move from well water to a modern water system in the early 1980s. A wastewater system followed in the late 1990s under Mayor Holleman.