1880: William Anderson is issued a homestead patent for Happy Valley (stretch of land from Anderson Bay up the old railroad tracks into the Valley now (1977) owned by the Warren Family.
1883: “Old” Anderson marries “Indian” Mary James on December 3rd in Happy Valley.
1889: Christian Fredrick “Fritz” Pfundt, his wife Catherin and 9 children homestead 160 acres in Dewatto. Fritz never misses a dance in the community.
1889: Robert Wyatt Sr. his wife Ellen and nine children move to what is now called Holly. They are the first white family in Holly. They log and fish.
1890: Wyatt receives a deed for 145 acres from the government Homestead Act.
1891: William Rust receives homestead patent for 160 acres south of the Wyatt property.
1893: Rust opens school in his house and becomes its first school teacher.
1893: Wyatt opens store and post office and the area is officially named Holly.
1894: Albert Pfundt, oldest child of Fritz Pfundt, purchases property in Holly and marries Nellie Wyatt. He’s a fisherman, purse-seiner and shrimper.
1899: Widower William Hole and his 6 children move to Holly after his wife Eliza dies in childbirth.
1900: Robert Wyatt dies. Just prior, he donates land to create a Holly cemetery. John Youngblood opens store on the point (Bourke’s) just north of the Wyatt property. George Cady Johnson starts teaching in Holly.
1902: Fred Wyatt buys the store from Youngblood and operates it until 1910. Youngblood and Franz Victor Anderson start a can opener factory powered by a large water wheel. It is not profitable so they start manufacturing knives made from discarded steel logging saws. They also erect a shingle mill using water wheel power.
1903: A large dance hall and community center is built down by Bourke’s Point for dances, picnics and community get-togethers. “There is always ice cream for children and the dances are really lively”.
1905: A second schoolhouse is built on the north side of the bay on property earlier donated by Robert Wyatt. The Riverside Timber company now owns or has rights to log 21,000 acres of timberland surrounding Holly.
1907: Ira and Rosa Stever and their three children move to Holly when their 18 year-old son George finds property for sale. Ira and his two sons work in logging camps and commercially fish.
1910: Albert Pfundt takes over ownership of Fred Wyatt’s store. The shingle mill stops operation and the machinery is sold to Thomas Lewis of Crosby.
1917: Albert and brother Louie bring the first cars (a Buick and a Dodge) to Holly via their boat at a time when there is only one very short road in Holly.
1922: Albert Pfundt builds a store next to his home and helps build the road around the bay furnishing many of the logs for the bulkhead. He builds 17 cabins along the water and rents them to loggers and their families for 9 months and summer folks for the remaining 3 months.
1922: Central Kitsap School District builds the two-room Holly Schoolhouse on land donated by Albert Pfundt. It serves children first through eighth grade with one teacher, Mrs. Whaley.
1941: During the War, the Government connects all of Holly with telephones and the main headquarters are in the schoolhouse where the basement is equipped as a bomb shelter.
1946: The Holly Schoolhouse closes; students are bussed to Seabeck and the School District offers the building to the community as long as they maintain it.
1947: The Holly Community Club is established and recognized by the state of Washington as a non-profit corporation. The first president is Monte Huestis and Florence Bowman is secretary.
1948/9: Albert Pfundt sells the store and cabins to Everett and Evelyn Johnson and their children: Kathleen, and Robert.
1950: After a long campaign by Holly residents to have a better road in and out of Holly, a new cut-off road is opened on July 23rd. Grandma Katie Pfundt, 95 years old, cuts the ribbon across the road with 700 people in attendance.
Sources:
Early Holly History compiled by R.W. Stever, F.P Clark, N.B. Swift; and Kitsap County: A History published by Kitsap County Historical Society