Drive past the corner of Avent Ferry Road and Ballentine Street on any ordinary Tuesday and there is nothing to slow you down. It is parking, sidewalk, the back side of Town Hall. The town scheduled a new historical marker unveiling for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 18, on that exact corner. The railroad story behind it helps explain how downtown Holly Springs got its shape.
Here is the part most residents do not know: Holly Springs almost did not get a railroad at all.
The town that almost missed its own railroad
In the early 1890s, a north-south line through southern Wake County chose Apex over Holly Springs, leaving the town off the map for regional freight and passenger service. A local businessman named George Benton Alford, who wanted to turn the village into an industrial hub, ran his own newspaper largely to campaign for a line of Holly Springs' own. He got a charter in 1891 for what became the Cape Fear and Northern Railroad. Then nothing happened for years. Hard economic times stalled construction, and the legislature had to keep extending the charter just to keep the project alive on paper.
The break came in early 1898, when Durham capital, specifically Benjamin N. Duke and his brother-in-law John C. Angier, got behind the project. On July 27, 1898, Alford's daughter Mattie threw the first shovelful of dirt. The line opened for business in 1899 with a staff you could count on one hand: a station agent, an engineer, a fireman, a conductor, and three section hands. Trains left Angier at 8:30 in the morning, reached Holly Springs by 9:26, and connected with Seaboard's mail service running out of Raleigh. In 1904 the Dukes recharted it as the Durham and Southern Railroad and extended it from Apex to East Durham. The line eventually became part of the Seaboard Coast Line and later CSX, and it kept running trains through town until 1981.
The depot itself stood on Avent Ferry Road, behind where Town Hall sits now, the exact site identified for the railroad marker.
Why Holly Springs created a marker program
Holly Springs has had scattered historical markers for years, at the Masonic Lodge on Raleigh Street, at the site of the old Mims Drugstore on Center Street, at the former grist mill that's now part of Bass Lake Park. What it did not have, until June 20, 2023, was a formal historical marker program with actual criteria for what earns a marker and who decides. The railroad marker is one of the first to go through that new, structured process. In a town whose population barely broke 200 people in the 1890s and now measures growth in thousands of new rooftops a year, that shift matters. The formal program gives the town a way to record local history on its own timeline.
The weekend built to explain the marker
The anniversary-week schedule included All Aboard, Holly Springs, a model train show that had been scheduled for Saturday, August 22, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cultural Center. The show had been set to feature train-themed crafts, historical photos of the line that used to run through town, and NCDOT's Be Rail Safe and Operation Lifesaver teams. At 2 p.m., local train historian Rob Rousseau had been scheduled to give a presentation on the history of the line, the same history the marker commemorates. That same Saturday morning, Sproutfest had also been scheduled at the Farmers Market, with a touch-a-truck experience featuring fire and police vehicles. The schedule paired Tuesday's marker ceremony with a hands-on version of the same lesson for families on Saturday, four days later.
The street getting a second life
On Friday, August 21, Summer at the Springs had been scheduled on the Cultural Center lawn, with All Y'all Country All-Stars having been slated to perform from 6 to 9 p.m.; the town had also scheduled a Festival Street Design Lab at the same location. The session was intended to gather feedback on turning the stretch of Avent Ferry Road between West Ballentine and Center streets into a pedestrian-friendly festival street that can close to cars for events. It is worth sitting with the fact that this is the same road the trains once ran down. A century and a quarter ago, Avent Ferry Road carried freight and passengers into a town trying to build itself into an industrial center. Now the town is redesigning that same corridor to carry foot traffic for festivals and restaurant crowds instead. Mobility upgrades are backing the change too. GoTriangle added longer hours and an extra bus route to Holly Springs this August, and the Holly Springs Hopper ride-share service launched earlier this year, both aimed at getting people downtown without needing to park a car on Main Street.
Where the anniversary actually shows up on a plate
Downtown's first-ever Restaurant Week runs Friday, August 21 through Saturday, August 29, distinct from the broader Triangle-wide restaurant week that already includes Holly Springs restaurants every January alongside dozens of spots in Raleigh, Durham, Cary and Apex. This one is hyperlocal by design, confined to a walkable few blocks around Main Street. Mamma Mia Italian Bistro, Osha Thai Kitchen and Sushi, Pimiento Tea Room, Bass Lake Draft House, and Smashed Burgers and Cocktails at Town Hall Commons are all running specials through the week, a short walk from each other along and just off Main Street. The effect is that the town's 150th anniversary is not just a banner over Main Street, it is a reason to actually walk the two blocks between the marker's new home and a dinner table.
What comes after the balloons
The week closes on Saturday, August 29, with a 150th-themed Farmers Market at the Cultural Center, complete with swag drawings, history-related crafts, and antique farming equipment on display. Beyond this specific week, the Cultural Center announced on August 5 that it is opening its 20th-anniversary performance season this fall, with tickets already moving fast. The lineup includes the Southern Wake Players' production of "1776" running September 18 through 20, a mystery theater production called "A Haunting in Holly Springs" running October 2 through 4, a free 20th-anniversary concert from the all-volunteer Holly Springs Community Band on October 17, an Elvis tribute from Stephen Freeman on October 24, and a comedy night with John Floyd on November 6.
The anniversary-week schedule included:
- Tuesday, August 18, 5:30 p.m.: Historical marker unveiling scheduled at Avent Ferry Road and Ballentine Street
- Friday, August 21: Restaurant Week was scheduled to begin downtown, along with the Summer at the Springs concert with All Y'all Country All-Stars and the Festival Street Design Lab feedback session
- Saturday, August 22, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: All Aboard model train show scheduled at the Cultural Center, with Sproutfest and touch-a-truck also scheduled at the Farmers Market that morning
- Saturday, August 29: Restaurant Week closes with a 150th-themed Farmers Market
None of this required a single new building. It required the town deciding, only in the last few years, to formally mark what already happened here and to build a week of programming that actually explains it rather than just celebrating a round number.
Weeks like this are the reason people who already live in Holly Springs tend to stay put. If you are curious what your own corner of that history is worth in today's market, Hodge & Kittrell Sotheby's International Realty can help you find out. Request Your Instant Home Valuation and see where you stand.
