In the 1970s, Hollis, New Hampshire primarily existed as a farming town. Apple orchards defined the landscape, as well as strawberry fields and forests. The town was scarcely populated -- approximately 2,000 people -- and occasionally had livestock cross the road.
Over a few decades, Hollis, New Hampshire became more densely populated, and real estate was developed over what was previously farm land. The population increased to over 8,000 due to the town's vicinity to Nashua, a booming city in New Hampshire.
In the 1970s, one had to drive for miles to go to the supermarket in Hollis, New Hampshire. The observer described the small public school system as sufficient to accommodate the town's small population -- an analogy for the fact that the needs of the mere 2,000 residents were met.
Over a few decades, with the booming population, the public schools no longer had space for all the children and the library could not accommodate the needs of Hollis's residents. The observer took action and with the school board worked to expand the public school system and the library. The cost of life also became higher due to the influx of people working in Nashua.
Interviewer: Hello. Welcome to Land Talk. Today, we’ll be talking about Hollis, New Hampshire. So, what was Hollis like when you first moved there?
Interviewee: Hollis was a very small sleepy New Hampshire town, lots and lots of apple orchards and some farmland and even a dairy farm that I remember.
Interviewer: And it’s not like that anymore.
Interviewee: It is not. It’s become a busier suburb. Lots of people moving in because of industry in Nashua, New Hampshire which is a nearby town. And the schools have had to grow, new schools built, and new streets are there, and lots of people bemoaning the loss of favorite trees.
Interviewer: So do you spend any time in these apple orchards?
Interviewee: I did. We picked apples. It was, you know, apple season. There was an apple festival in our town. Our kids worked at the local fruit farm with the, you know…it was part of their life and part of what made Hollis beautiful when we were there.
Interviewer: You said it was just a general farm. Were there other farms in Hollis, New Hampshire?
Interviewee: Other than apple orchards?
Interviewer: Other than apple orchards.
Interviewee: There were some strawberry fields and you could go strawberry picking at the right season. And some corn was grown although a lot of it was for dairy farms.
Interviewer: So you feel like the removal of these orchards or the changing environment has completely changed the culture of the place.
Interviewee: It’s changed it in a lot of ways. There’s less space. There’s less beautiful nature to look at. And the local people who were there when I first moved in cannot afford to be there anymore. So they’re selling their land. They’re selling their farms because they can make so much money with selling it to developers. And they themselves have to move out because they can’t afford the homes now.
Interviewer: Do you have any stories that are particularly pertinent to how Hollis used to be?
Interviewee: Well, I can tell you that the very first time I moved in and I was driving down the street, we had to stop the car because some cows were passing by. And I said to myself, “”You have moved to the boondocks.”” I could not believe that I had left Massachusetts and a pretty booming area for the country. But grandfather’s industry, he has a computer company, had moved to New Hampshire, and so we followed. And when the cows finally passed, I started crying. “”What have I done?”” But I’m not sure I could find a cow there anymore and I grew to love it. I really did like Hollis very soon after. But even to go to a supermarket, to go to a grocery store, I had to travel 20 minutes out of the town. There was nothing in Hollis except it was beautiful.
Interviewer: Besides the orchards, has anything else changed about the natural landscape?
Interviewee: Well, just that there are more and more houses where there was natural landscape. So it’s harder to find… Every apple orchard that gets cut down, you know, they leave a few so that you can have a house that looks out at an apple, but not an orchard. And there are few farms that still exist. Instead of just working farms where they would sell the produce to stores I guess, or maybe even have farm stands where people stopped, now it’s almost a tourist attraction. People come to the apple festival and the strawberry festival, and they go to these big shops that are selling more than just food from the fields. Now they’re selling souvenirs and, you know, fake antiques, and they have petting zoos and all. So it’s a very different kind of atmosphere.
Interviewer: So you would say that a changed environment changed your day-to-day routine or day-to-day life?
Interviewee: Well, what changed was the size of the town and because the size of the town changed, the schools needed to change. So we were suddenly having to organize people to fight for more teachers and smaller classrooms and building new schools. And I was on the library trustees’ board and worked for several years to build in addition to the library. So the whole town was changing. It was 3,000 people when I moved and 20 years later, it was probably 8,000 in the town. So there were a lot of new houses where there once were trees.
Interviewer: Right. Great. Thank you.