LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — In 1953, the townsfolk of Pittman, Nevada, had been pressured to decide that may hang-out them for many years amid crime, progress, and business; stay unbiased or merge into Henderson.
In response to Mark Corridor-Patton, retired museum director for The Clark County Museum, the representatives from Henderson, referred to as the Primary Township, had been in a poor bargaining place proper from the beginning after they approached the neighboring Pittman.
“Three-quarters of the people in Henderson left [in 1944], and Henderson almost went away,” he stated. “Pittman was still doing just fine.”
What made Henderson distinctive was its occupants had been adamant about turning into an integrated metropolis—following the specter of turning into military surplus—however they didn’t have sufficient landowners.
“But the people in Pittman already owned their property,” Corridor-Patton stated. “In order to incorporate the people in ‘Old Town Henderson’ had to get the people in Pittman to become part of Henderson.”
The inhabitants of Pittman had their very own separate, cultural id and benefited from space sights like a restaurant run by one of many largest names in American Olympic gold medal historical past, Jim Thorp.
“He came to Pittman and set up a restaurant there in April of 1952,” Corridor-Patton stated. “He had a massive heart attack in August of 1952 and realized he couldn’t continue to run his restaurant there.”
Below strain, Pittman’s residents agreed to grow to be part of the brand new Metropolis of Henderson, gaining a seat on town council. The choice would in the end result in Pittman’s fall to obscurity and Henderson’s rise to the second-largest metropolis in Nevada.
The defrocked lawyer and well-digger
In 1917, three males standing within the Mojave Desert found a deposit of manganese and turned it into an open-pit dig web site, referred to as Three Children Mine. The fabric was utilized in weapons and tools throughout the U.S. effort in World Warfare I. Nonetheless, one yr later the warfare ended, and demand slumped which subsequently slowed exercise within the space.
B.R. Jefferson, one of many founders of Three Children Mine, sought to make the most of the just lately signed Pittman Act and determined to develop land eight miles west of his mine. The city was named after the laws’s namesake, Nevada Senator Key Pittman.
“Now, in order to take up the land there, you had to dig a well and bring in crops,” Corridor-Patton stated. “[Jefferson] hired a lawyer here in Las Vegas by the name of T. Alonzo Wells, who was a defrocked lawyer from Orange County, California.”
Wells agreed to dig the effectively for the quaint city and started planting crops on the evenings and weekends together with his spouse.
“[Wells] did so in the 1920s, brought in 20 acres of crops, grapes, sunflowers, and walnuts,” Corridor-Patton stated. “He brought in 20 acres. Proved that he could do that. That got them 640 acres of land for free under this Pittman Act.”
As a result of Jefferson by no means paid Wells, the effectively digger freely obtained the land and subdivided it with the plan to begin promoting it off.
“Without Pittman, we wouldn’t have had a Henderson,” stated retired museum director for The Clark County Museum, Mark Corridor-Patton.
“But in the 1920s there wasn’t a lot of interest in the land,” Corridor-Patton stated. “There was some he was able to sell, a little bit of it, but most of it he held on to until people started needing land for housing.”
Nonetheless, driving up the meandering street alongside Pittman a wholly new kind of businessman was fascinated about opening within the space — bootleggers.
“This was during Prohibition, and it was mainly people who were building bars in the area,” Corridor-Patton stated.
“The Shambles”
By the Thirties different areas started to take form throughout the space referred to as Pittman together with Halfway, Jericho Heights, Canine Patch (at the moment Jokers Wild On line casino), and St. Anne.
“In most cases, they were basically not communities, but they were businesses,” Corridor-Patton stated. “Dog Patch, that was an area that had the Victory Bar, the Sportsman’s Bar, and the House of Price, which was a cut-rate furniture store. Why it was called ‘Dog Patch,’ I’ve never been able to figure it out.”
In 1931, the realm was given a brand new connection to the rising metropolis of Las Vegas and Boulder Metropolis with the repaving of the meandering state route which locals referred to as “The Shambles,” identified extra extensively as Boulder Freeway.
“Boulder Highway, when it was first paved, was called ‘The Shambles’ because it was a blood alley,” Corridor-Patton stated. “It was one of the most dangerous roads.”
A neighborhood favourite among the many harmful drivers was Parker’s Home of Reminiscences, a bottle home, which when clients knocked on the door solely needed to spend just a few cents earlier than some made the life-altering choice to drive drunk, trying to make it to work on the under-construction Boulder Dam.
“All of a sudden it became a place that people wanted to build businesses on,” Corridor-Patton stated. “It became a place that people were buying properties from [Wells], building businesses along there, others moved out there and started building some housing, and it turned into a little community.”
Pittman wrestled with the obstacles of drunk drivers, Prohibition, and water safety by the last decade however ended the Thirties stronger with six extra water wells.
“[Wells] gave those wells to the community,” Corridor-Patton stated.
Nonetheless, one thing caught the eye of the residents of Pittman. On the horizon of the brand new Boulder Freeway, an progressive growth would grow to be the realm’s best salvation and demise knell — Henderson.
Swanky Membership
In 1941, crews for Primary Magnesium Included cleared and graded a 5,000-acre web site for a corporation city, which might construct and provide magnesium for bombs and airplane elements for the U.S. warfare effort throughout World Warfare II, three miles south of Pittman.
“All the land in Henderson was owned by Basic Magnesium, not owned by the people who were living there,” Corridor-Patton stated. “It was making magnesium, not manganese — that was the Three Kids Mine.”
Primary Townsite rapidly exploded with progress reaching round 13,000 staff at its top all through the realm, turning into one of many largest magnesium crops on the earth. The prospect for work and facilities led to the creation of a bowling alley, theater, hospital, and smorgasbord of eating places. Pittman was nonetheless in a position to maintain its personal with the plant staff visiting Frankie Carr’s Swanky Membership (positioned at 920 N. Boulder Freeway) and Halfway On line casino.
“Everybody went to Pittman in order to go eat,” Corridor-Patton stated. “But still people thought of themselves as being in Henderson, except they were in Pittman.”
In 1943, the residents of Primary Townsite added the ending touches to their put up workplace which was devoted two months later in honor of U.S. Senator Charles B. Henderson who additionally financed the constructing of the plant, and the “Henderson” title resonated. Nonetheless, the city would face a hardship already exhausting realized by Three Children Mine when a warfare is over.
“In 1944 Basic Magnesium was shut down,” Corridor-Patton stated.
For 9 years Henderson turned a shadow of its golden period, because the residents of Pittman continued to progress with an lively Ladies’s Membership, avenue names/numbers, and a mail supply system.
“They were really working to upgrade the community,” Corridor-Patton stated. “Because they really had a sense of themselves as their own community.”
By early 1953 Henderson’s infrastructure was falling aside and metropolis companies prolonged to the realm by Clark County had been on account of lapse by July. If Henderson wished to include it wanted extra folks for upkeep, workforce, and taxes. Henderson turned its keen eyes again within the course of Pittman and the city that predated the realm conceded.
“Without Pittman, we wouldn’t have had a Henderson,” Corridor-Patton stated.
‘Ongoing issues’
The honeymoon interval of Henderson’s incorporation was short-lived Inside just a few months of the swearing-in of Dr. Jim French as the primary mayor, the residents of Pittman had been already having doubts.
“Even though it became a city in April of 1953 by September of 1953 Pittman tried to pull away to disincorporate as part of Henderson,” Corridor-Patton stated. “There were problems for many years as to whether or not Pittman would stay as part of Henderson.”
By 1954 Pittman noticed some advantages from incorporation with the set up of utility poles and the development of the Pittman Neighborhood Middle.
For many years Pittman struggled to stay separate from the Metropolis of Henderson. In 1974, Pittman’s separate put up workplace would shut dismantling a key a part of the neighborhood’s id. The Pittman Neighborhood Middle would grow to be the goal of vandals, and one of many neighborhood’s grocery shops, Dick’s Market, can be burned to the bottom, solely Nation Cousins remained (later referred to as Rancho Market).
The autumn of Pittman would culminate within the chambers of Henderson Metropolis Corridor with the passing of an ordinance, perceived as a slight towards the elder neighborhood.
“Pittman had a member on the city council, but only one,” Corridor-Patton stated. “The city council in Henderson passed an ordinance and said, ‘We won’t have any bars and we won’t have any gaming in Henderson, except on Boulder Highway.’”
Whether or not meant or not, the ordinance was seen as an assault on Pittman, however there was little choice for the city.
“That basically all the bars and gaming was going to be in Pittman,” Corridor-Patton stated. “Pittman was a little upset about that. ‘What do you mean? You guys aren’t going to have any bars. We already have bars. You’re going to have all of that in our area. That’s not right.”
Slowly Pittman fell into obscurity as Henderson took new type within the Nineties with the event of the Inexperienced Valley masterplan neighborhood.
In 2024, Corridor-Patton stated not a lot nonetheless exists from the unique web site of Pittman aside from just a few namesakes like Wells Park, Worth St. (presumably named after the Home of Worth furnishings retailer), and some names etched within the sidewalk. The expansion of the Cadence masterplan neighborhood now poses the following risk to the id of Pittman.
“You look at Cadence today, and it’s just, it’s huge,” Corridor-Patton stated.
Corridor-Patton stated growth or progress is just not essentially unhealthy however it’s vital to remind residents of the historical past.
“As with any place, you need to have a sense of a community’s background,” he stated. “You really shouldn’t forget that this was its own community, even though it’s now part of Henderson.”
Proof of Pittman
On June 10, 2023, the Queho Posse Chapter 1919, in cooperation with Jim Marsh, positioned a historic marker for Pittman within the car parking zone of Skyline On line casino.
The inscription of the Pittman, Nevada historic marker reads partly as follows:
“Pittman began as an informal housing area along the newly built Boulder Highway about 1930. It was first known as Jericho Heights, and later as St. Ann and Midway City. In 1942, the community was named for Senator Key Pittman, who had died five days after being re-elected to the U.S. Senate for the sixth time. The unincorporated community boasted gas stations, bars, grocery stores, casinos and clubs, and starting on July 3, 1942, its own post office. When Henderson wanted to incorporate in 1953, it did not have enough land owners, and had to absorb Pittman into the new city to succeed.”
