HOLLY SPRINGS, TEXAS (Camp County). Holly Springs is ten miles southeast of Pittsburg on Farm Road 557 in southeastern Camp County. The community, located in a heavily wooded area between Prairie and Greasy creeks, took its name from the numerous holly trees that flourished there. Although settlement in the vicinity began in the 1850s, by the 1890s the area was still sparsely populated. The residents of Holly Springs and those of County Line jointly built a one-room school called Bluff Springs. In 1897 the two communities together had a total scholastic population of forty children of school age. By 1903 Holly Springs residents had built their own school, and in 1904 they organized a Baptist church. By the 1930s the community had a sawmill, store, church, and elementary school. Eighteen children of elementary-school age lived in the community, and older students attended high school in nearby Pittsburg. By 1955 the school district had been consolidated with the Pittsburg Independent School District, and by 1960 all that remained in Holly Springs was a church and scattered houses. In 1983 a few widely scattered houses remained in the area.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hollie Max Cummings, An Administrative Survey of the Schools of Camp County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937). Artemesia L. B. Spencer, The Camp County Story (Fort Worth: Branch-Smith, 1974).

Cecil Harper, Jr.