My Beach Venture

It is hard for me to realize sixty years have passed since I built my first pavilion on Ferry Road between Ocean Boulevard and the Atlantic Ocean. The future of this island was not promising, and there was no guarantee. There were only fifteen cottages on the island the Spring of 1939; four of those cottages were west of Ferry Road and eleven east of that road. There was no paved road from the beach to U.S. Highway #17 and no electricity or telephones in Brunswick County.

Before I built the pavilion, Dad and I agreed the beach needed something to attract more visitors to the island; this pavilion did serve a useful purpose. Visitors here for the day needed a place to shower and dress; also a place to purchase refreshments. The cottage owners’ families and their visitors used the pavilion as a community building at night. A Kohler light plant generated current for water, lights, and to operate the jukebox at the pavilion. The jukebox was a novelty to the general public, especially rural people who did not have electricity. We generated our electricity the Summer of 1939 and 1940; this was two years before Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation extended their power lines to serve the island.

Most of the families those days lived on limited incomes, and were more dependent on each other. Parents could not afford to buy cars for their high school and college children.

Families did not hesitate to walk to the pavilion at night; many of them walked a mile or more. The boys and their girl friends would walk with their families. Many of the boys would limit their spending to twenty-five cents each night. The quarter would buy two drinks (5 cents each) and play the juke box three times (5 cents each).

The cottage owners and their guests enjoyed meeting their neighbors and friends at the pavilion each night and sharing with each other their experiences of that day. Surf fishing was good those days, and some had good fish stories to tell. Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation extended their power lines to the island the Spring of 1941; this gave new interest to the beach. Several new cottages were built the Summer of 1941.

Homeowners were encouraged when the Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation extended their power lines to the island, but several years passed before the current was dependable during July and August. During the late summer months, humidity would from on the transformers at the top of the pole; this would create a short and set fire to the top of the pole. Since there were no telephones in the county, someone would have to drive to Shallotte to report the blackout; sometimes this would happen several times in one week. The electric company had no power equipment those days, and most of the time the blackout lasted eight hours or more. Several years passed before the electric company perfected equipment that would not create a short.

All beach development stopped again December 7, 1941, when the Japanese Government bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. I volunteered for service the following week and spent four years in the United States Navy. I was discharged from the navy in December of 1945 and found living conditions in civilian life much different in Brunswick County when I returned. Most of the essential things a person needed were hard to find, especially any kind of hardware, building materials and automobiles. Auto dealers had a long waiting list for new cars and pickups; and the dealer expected the buyer to pay the dealer bonus above the factory list price or the person did not receive any consideration. My youngest brother, Kemp R. Holden, volunteered for service and was in the Army Air Force. He was a B25 pilot. He was like thousands of young service men who came home and could not find employment.

In the Spring of 1946 Kemp and I decided to enter a joint business. We enlarged the pavilion I had built in 1939. The enlargement provided for a small café, grocery, bathhouse and a recreation area. This was identified as the “J&K.” Kemp had a fascination for flying airplanes and was not satisfied at the beach. After two years at the beach he left and flew a spotter plane for one of the big fish factories that operated near Southport before Hurricane Hazel destroyed the factory in October, 1954. He joined the F.A.A. later, was very successful in his work there, and stayed there until he retired.

As years passed more people came to the beach and the number of cottages increased. The first paved road from U.S. Highway #17 to the beach as built in 1949, and this road today is identified as the Mt. Pisgah Road. The availability of electricity and a paved road from the beach to U.S. Highway #17 stimulated more interest in beach development.

The pavilion I built in 1939 could no longer provide the needs of the beach visitors and homeowners. I built a large two-story pavilion between Holden Street and Ferry Road in the Spring of 1951. The first floor provided space for bowling alleys, a bathhouse, concession center, souvenir section and a section for a United States post office. This post office had an official Holden Beach stamp, but there were no zip codes in those days. Johnsie M. Holden was the first official postmistress of Holden Beach.

The second story provided a fifty feet by fifty feet recreation room. This room was used for a public worship service each Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon during the summer season and all businesses were closed for one hour. A restaurant and soda fountain were located on the second floor also. The restaurant could seat about seventy-five people; this was considered a large restaurant in Brunswick County in those days. There were no air conditioned businesses in the county, but the sea breeze blowing through the dining room on the second floor made it enjoyable. I built several rental units and more people were coming to the beach to spend their vacations. Some bought property to build their own cottages.