Holly Hill Dedicates New Town Hall

Holly Hill funded the construction of a municipal building, in part, with bond issues and, in part, with laborers supplied by the WPA. The town approved the project in 1936 and hired Daytona Beach architect Alan J. MacDonough to design the building. T

The plans for the Coquina building were approved in November 1939 and laid the cornerstone in 1940. Holly Hill celebrated the 1942 Labor Day by dedicating its new municipal building with state, county, and neighboring city officials joining in the exercises.

A handsome and spacious structure of native coquina stone, concrete, and steel, the new municipal building faces Ridgewood Avenue from the middle of a nine-acre park. One Of the largest public buildings in the county, it houses the town’s municipal offices, two school rooms and a manual training room for the high school, the fire department, the police department, an office for the state road department, and a fully equipped first aid room for the defense council.

Mayor Alex Littlefield presided as master of ceremonies over the dedication exercises in the large auditorium. Seated on the large stage with him was Secretary of State R. A. Gray, who attended as the governor’s representative. 

Charles Tom Henderson, chairman of the building planning committee, told how in 1938 Littlefield conceived the idea of the building and how with the aid of townspeople, the WPA, and county school officials it finally was brought to completion.

Secretary Gray paid his compliments to the new building by saying it was a fine example of what a community could accomplish by planning and perseverance.

George W. Marks, county school superintendent, said the county school board gave its support to the structure because of the needed expansion it offered the Holly Hill school system. Littlefield said it would have been impossible to have carried the project to successful completion without the intelligent aid and cooperation of the works progress administration and its officials, and all the townspeople.

Bernard M. Beach, president of the council and mayor protem, told his townspeople and their guests that the building was “a monument to a people unafraid to plan, to sacrifice and to serve.”