| $ 370,000 |
Old Holt School .
Holt, FL has roots in the timber industry. According to many, the first pioneers to come to the Holt area settled along the Yellow River. And though no exact date is given, it was prior to the survey of Benjamin Clemets and James W. Exum in 1828-29, or the survey of Henry Wells in 1852.
The community’s first real source of income was a sawmill known as Mart’s Mill. It was located on Canoe Creek with a ditch cut from the northeast corner of the mill pond to a ‘waste-way’ on Trawick Creek. The ditch transported logs to the mill and furnished enough water to run the mill. The mill was later owned by Jim Black (1820-1893) and was called Canoe Mill according to Holt resident, Eva Wadsworth.
Ann Spann notes in a newspaper article that it was not the prospect of the railroad which brought settlers to the area. It was the reality of timber from the virgin pine forest which covered the sparsely populated area.
David Holt built his small log cabin just north of where the railroad track would later to located. He had a store in one corner of the cabin and served residents who had settled in the area called “up on the hill”. Holt’s store was located along the stagecoach road which ran from Milton, FL. and northeast to Florala, AL. The stagecoach used his stable to rest and feed their horses. In 1902, William Holt, son of David Holt and Monroe Seigler built the Holt-Seigler Mercantile Company.
Another source of income was hauling ‘lite-ard (lightwood) knots’ along the railroad to dump sites. The wood, used as train fuel, sold for sixty cents per cord. The railroad paid for the wood with tickets or in cash. The tickets could be used at the local store. However, cash was only available once per month when the railway pay car came through the area. Another source of income was cutting cross ties from the many cypress trees and selling them to the railroad company.
In 1888 John W. Senterfitt established the first school at Hurricane Head. In 1889 several small turpentine stills sprang up south of the Yellow River. The Ewing brothers first turpentine still was built in Holt ca 1900. The following year, several families gathered in the area to worship and soon organized the New Hope Baptist Church. Later, the church later became Holt Baptist Church. By 1903, a large new depot and three section houses for a railroad maintenance crew were built by the Southern Express Company.
In 1909, W.T. Smith and his sons – Will, Frank and Ed – built a sawmill west of the Ewing’s. The town was called Holts for many years: the train conductor would say, “Next stop, Holt’s” as the train neared the station. But as time went by the ‘s’ was dropped from the name.
In 1927, the first bus service came through Holt. It was a large car owned by Tom Dollar who called the old car “The Jitney.” Jeremy Johnson and Justin Sutton, recent students at the Baker School (ca 1990) wrote a paper noting that Mr. Dollar made a round trip from Florala, AL to Milton FL everyday. The jitney services stopped when the old car finally wore out. They credit Mr. Max Cooper, The History of Holt, as their primary resource.
In its prime, the little town boasted two movie theaters. The Holt Hotel was near the cemetery. Mrs. Mabel Ates arrived in 1915 and raised nine children in the town. She took in washing and ironing to help rear her children. She was featured in a newspaper article on her 100th birthday.
To name just a few of the other pioneer families associated with the area: Adams, Baldwin, Bois, Cadenhead, Chestnut, Christian, Cooper, Dollar, Edenfield, Fisher, Hart, Rowland, Sanders, Steele, Pippins, Livingston.
http://bakerblockmuseum.org/oldtowns.html
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