In 1872 Wake Forest College convinced the Railroad to move the station from Forestville to a location just east of the campus. Shortly afterwards, the College began to sell lots east of the tracks for homes and businesses.
A downtown business district grew rapidly, and during the first half of the twentieth century this area flourished.
Downtown Wake Forest boasted a full slate of businesses that included department stores, men’s clothing stores, pool halls, two movie theaters, a Chevrolet dealership, three drug stores, two grocery stores, banks, a cotton broker, and as many as twenty eating establishments catering to students, faculty and residents.
It was in the truest sense of the word a “college town.”