Rural Roots

Advance sits in the southeastern corner of Davie County, an area defined for centuries by agriculture. The earliest settlers arrived in the mid-to-late 1700s, primarily Scots-Irish and German families who cleared the hardwood forests and established family farms. They grew corn, wheat, and tobacco, raised hogs and cattle, and built the self-sufficient homesteads that characterized Piedmont farm life.

The community took its name from a simple country store — the "Advance" — which served as a gathering place and trading post for the scattered farms of southeastern Davie County. In time, the name stuck to the entire crossroads settlement that grew around it.

The Railroad & Growth

The arrival of the railroad in the late 1800s connected Advance to wider markets for the first time. The Advance depot became a vital shipping point where farmers could load tobacco, grain, and produce onto freight cars bound for Winston-Salem and beyond. This connection transformed the local economy, making it profitable to grow cash crops at a commercial scale.

• A general store and post office anchored the crossroads
• A cotton gin served the surrounding farms
• Small blacksmith shops and grist mills rounded out the local economy
• The depot platform became the social center — where news, goods, and visitors arrived

Churches & Schools

Like most rural communities in Davie County, Advance organized its civic life around churches and schools. Advance United Methodist Church and other rural congregations served as both spiritual centers and venues for community gatherings — from potluck suppers to harvest celebrations to funeral services that brought the whole countryside together.

The old Advance School educated generations of local children before consolidation into the Davie County school system. The schoolhouse — a simple frame building typical of rural education in the early 20th century — is remembered fondly by older residents as the place where community bonds were forged alongside lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Advance Today

Modern Advance is a community in transition. Its location along Highway 801 and proximity to Clemmons and Winston-Salem have made it increasingly attractive for residential development. New subdivisions have appeared alongside century-old farmhouses, and commuters now outnumber full-time farmers.

Yet the rural character endures. Open fields, barns, and woodlands still dominate the landscape. The immediate Advance community — roughly 1,200 residents in its core area — maintains a strong sense of local identity. Volunteer fire departments, church congregations, and civic organizations carry forward the tradition of neighbor helping neighbor that defined rural life for two centuries. It's a place where the past isn't just remembered — it's still lived.