 Originally called Little Falls in the 1870s, the community was established by the Union Lumbering Company along the Chippewa River and came to be known as Holcombe years later.The original Little Falls dam was built in 1878 by Elijah Swift and Joseph Viles for the Chippewa River Improvement and Log Driving Company.It was big for the time, a wooden dam wide and high with 32 floodgates.