Pittman Place in Grandfalls, Texas

Willard and Thelma Pittman purchased 21 acres from longtime county commissiioner Slim Boroughts and wife Jewel in the early 1960's.  the Boroughs had moved a shotgun, four room house onto the acreage, and added a back entry room and a front bedroom, probably in the late 1940's.  A red barn stood to the back of the house and a 'Trap' area was fenced off to the right of the house which ran the length of the acreage from the road to the back fence.  Over the years, Willard built sucker rod, portable pens and a shed for Stacy's horses, and pens to the back of the barn for Stacy's FFA pigs.

 Hay and grass was grown with water coming down from Red Bluff and was irrigated from the ditch that ran the length of the back fence.  The ditch was cleared by Willard using a Maintainer Tractor.  The irrigation was a slow process of opening the ditch at intervals with a shovel and flooding the rows.  When the row was flooded the opening was covered and the next row opened.  It took all day and all night of opening and closing the ditch from the Brandenburg fence line to the Pittman fence line to complete the irrigation.

The Pittman Family lived on the place off and on from the 1960's through the later part of the 1980's.  Stacy was the only Pittman to graduate from Grandfalls-Royalty High School, as his older siblings all graduated from Monahans.  After Willards death in 1988, Thelma decided to stay in Midland, where they had been living.  Pittman Place was sold to Willard and Thelma's oldest daughter and her husband.  Pittman Place became a reunion spot for Thanksgiving Day, Easter Egg Hunts, and Pittman Family get-togethers.

In 1991 Wayne and Sue opened the pasture fence running along the entry road and moved in a house, built a big screened in porch, fenced off an area along side the barn for a garden, renovated the barn and added a shed and pens.  The 'Old House' was used as Pittman Place Pottery and Art Studio.

Willard Carroll Pittman ~ Pittman Place ~ Grandfalls, Texas 1982

~The Pittman Place land was Irrigated out of the same ditch that Willard's father had been 'The Ditch Rider' for Fifty years earlier. 

~In 1994-95 Pittman Place was sold to neighbors, the Brandenburgs.