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Yet town fathers are not shy in letting it be known they want to maintain the "village character" associated with Fuquay-Varina. A planned revitalized downtown will offer specialty shops, boutiques, restaurants, professional offices, and second-story residences, along with ample parking and pedestrian friendly streets.
By the time the massive renovation project is finished, the block-and-a-half-long area along Broad Street will ultimately provide the feeling of a small town that thrived as an overnight railroad stop at the start of the 1900s. The vintage appeal will include extensive landscaping, park benches, new street lighting, new sidewalks with brick bands and scored concrete, and completely renovated buildings with first-floor expanded space and new residential or loft living on the second. Guided by the Fuquay-Varina Revitalization Association, Inc., special attention will be added in the commercial and new residential space in the historic district of the town. Attention will be devoted to facades, signage, and graphics, window displays, building appearances, rear entrances, landscaping, public seating, parking and park areas.
The project is the only one of its kind in Wake County involving a cooperative funding effort between town and state government. When completed, the area will be recognized as the Varina Commercial Historical District as part of the National Registry of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The springs ceased to be a resort area in the 1920s. Located on the southwest corner of the intersection of West Spring Street and South Main Street , the site is to be developed as a historical park. Though they still flow today, the waters are not being used commercially.
It is believed the first European to settle here was a Frenchman named William Fuquay who purchased 1,000 acres of land for 50 cents an acre. William's son, Stephen married Sarah Austin of Wake County and built his home on what is now Pine Street . One of their sons, David Crockett Fuquay, is the one for whom it is believed the town was named.
David and his wife Louisa raised six sons in the quiet farming community then known as Sippihaw, a name taken from an Indian word meaning "good will." One of their sons, Stephen, is credited with discovery of a mineral spring on the property.
Stephen Fuquay was the proprietor of a large plantation and one day while plowing his fields he discovered a spring. He began using it for drinking water, and soon became convinced that the mineral water had valuable healing properties. Word spread after he told his friends and neighbors and the springs developed a reputation. They were walled in on four sides leaving the front lower for drainage. A gourd was hung at the spring for everyone to use.
Summer tourists began coming to the area, using several small hotels that had been built. But it wasn't until the early 1900s that the popularity of the spring reached its peak.
Meanwhile, one of the buildings built near the springs was a two-room private schoolhouse overlooking the springs at which a J.D. Ballentine was the first schoolmaster. He enlisted in the Confederate Army during Civil War and the romantic interest which led to the name Fuquay-Varina was about to develop.
They settled in the town of Sippihaw after the war and in 1880 when the town needed a post office, one was opened south of the mineral springs and Ballentine acted as postmaster. He called it Varina. The couple also opened a general store called the Varina Mercantile Company and in 1899 a community developed around the store.
This was the time the mineral water was in vogue and people came from miles around to visit the springs. Several commercial ventures were established and the Norfolk Southern Railroad and the Durham and Southern Railroad brought customers to the area on a daily basis.
At the turn of the 20th Century, a Raleigh resident, John A. Mills, developed a stop for his existing lumber railroad in Sippihaw. His flat cars were fitted with seats and "Moonlight Excursions" brought guests to the springs. The prospering town attracted Dr. J.A. Sexton to the community and he operated the Blanchard Hotel and a nearby restaurant to handle the town's increasing popularity.
The Town of Sippihaw was renamed Fuquay Springs in 1902 and incorporated in April 17, 1909, encompassing in its town limits the Varina business section and the Varina railroad junction. At this point, the dividing line between Fuquay Springs a nd Varina was virtually indistinguishable, but both continued to develop as separate communities. Varina later reestablished its own post office with the help of the local congressman, but the town was never incorporated.
By 1910 the Varina Union Station was built in Varina, the town obtained its own post office, and the Bank of Varina was founded in 1914. A year later the Fuquay Mineral Springs Corporation was formed in the first serious attempt to commercialize the springs. Water was bottled, sold, and delivered to various hotels.
A growing tobacco industry continued to fuel Varina's development, and included the addition of the Varina Supply Company, a farming supply store, in 1925. The Varina Knitting Company, built in 1933, operated until 1957.
By the 1920s, the two communities boasted five tobacco warehouses, a cotton buyer, and fifteen stores. The area became a trade and market center for Southern Wake, Harnett and Johnston Counties throughout the first half of this century. While residents began joining together in combined congregations at churches, the two towns maintained separate identities and post offices until 1963 when they eventually joined to become Fuquay-Varina.
- Fuquay-Varina Website - fuquay-varina.org
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