St. Demetrius Church from Bals city has been dated first time in 1753. The founders of the church were Ștefan Trapezunda vel Ban of Craiova and Archpriest Radu Căzănescu. The church was restored in 1913 when was added a porch.
On the present territory of the Balş city there was a human settlement dated since the first century AD. Regarding the attestation of Bals locality there have been many variants, some charters found, attest that the town was placed on the meadow of Olteţ before 1450. Written documents appear in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and they mention the existence of 55 rural settlements within and around Balș.
The name of the city comes from the slave Bolshoi which means “big”. Is about, therefore of a large village, of a borough. At its origins, city Bals implies a certain grandeur and something exceptional. Here has been, since immemorial times a fair at the crossroadsin which were made commercial exchanges between goods and products of the mountain regions and hill (plum brandy, wine, fir timbers, pots, barrels, gallons, Kavuk hats) with cereals products from the plain. Furthermore a charter of 1564 mentions the existence of Balș city as a human settlement strengthening the affirmations that many rich population of Serb origin broke in Balș area after the fall of Smederevei, a fortress town near Belgrade.
In a document from the eighteenth century, during the Austrian occupation, Balș is mentioned as a village of “megieși” (free peasants, landlords), having 55 large families.
Balș was one of the major and important human settlements in the Romania Country in the medieval period. Along with the beginning of the nineteenth centuryis noticed an development of Bals city which by that time was the largest village from the United Principates and one of the largest rural settlements having the second place in Romanați and third place in Oltenia, sixth place in the Country of Romania and ranked 14th in the Romanian Principates, having 743 households.
The period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is characterized by a multitude of events that facilitated the development of this settlement. Thus in 1845 after major repairs, has been put into service the highway Bucharest – Vârciorova, which passed through Balş as well as the completion of the railway Piatra Olt – Vârciorova, opened on January 5, 1875, together with the inauguration of the present town station. On May 9, 1875 passed through Bals the first fast train “Vienna – Bucharest” and on June 8, 1883 was passing through Balş the famous train “Orient Express”, which was carrying passengers between Paris – Constantinople (with transhipment at Varna and Giurgiu). On 22 October, 1921, Balș city was declared city residence of net. Starts the modernization of the city, are restored and paved the streets, a power plant is constructed, and during the same period are also built the house of culture, the cinema and the veterinary dispensary, which indicates a higher standard of living for the population.
