Bull Durham shares space with Holman and Hall
With construction of their new downtown location completed in 1893, Holman and Hall opened selling hardware, furniture, wagons and buggies, farm implements and household goods. They opened a funeral parlor on an upper mezzanine. Holman subsequently bought out Hall and before 1925 was selling automobiles.
Born in Plattsburg, Missouri, at the age of 16 John M. Holman arrived in Pittsburg in 1873. According to his obituary in the Pittsburg Gazette, he worked on a farm before opening a small fruit and confectionery business. He later entered the hardware trade, partnering first with C.H. Dean and later with R.L. Hall.
Advertisements from the late 1880s and 90s trace the growth of the business from Dean and Holman to Holman and Hall, one of the better-known mercantile firms in Northeast Texas.
Newspaper accounts from 1895 and 1896 follow his construction of brick buildings in downtown Pittsburg, replacing old frame structures.
He expanded his business interests beyond Pittsburg. He helped establish the Daingerfield Hardware and Furniture Company in neighboring Morris County, serving as one of its principal stockholders and directors.
He invested in other Pittsburg enterprises including the Pittsburg Textile Manufacturing Company and the Farmers Cotton Yard and Warehouse Company when cotton remained the economic foundation of Camp County.
In 1922 he helped organize the Northeast Texas Agricultural Fair and Livestock Association.
When he died unexpectedly on September 27, 1925, his obituary said he’d also built more than 50 residences in the city.
While Pittsburg mourned its longtime merchant and community leader, his son, Guy, was thousands of miles away aboard the passenger liner President Madison, performing with a ‘steamer band during a Pacific voyage,” the newspaper said. The voyage included stops in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Kobe and Manila the report said.
It was only upon the return to Seattle, reported the November 6, 1925 Pittsburg Gazette that his son learned of his father’s passing more than a month earlier.
In 1937 Holman descendants founded Holman Manufacturing Company, marking the evolution of the family’s commercial legacy from selling to manufacturing. The family’s furniture enterprise opened on West Marshall Street, adjacent to the railroad making it the ideal location for bringing in raw materials and shipping finished furniture throughout Texas and neighboring states.
The last of the family line managing the company, a second John M. Holman was recognized in 1954 by the Retail Furniture Association of Texas for making the “most outstanding contribution to the industry in Texas” that year.
The uncovering of the Holman and Hall Hardware and Bull Durham sign serves as a reminder of the family’s Pittsburg legacy.
