Pitts, Ga., reinventing itself to get out of the pits

<p>Years of neglect left the once-thriving business district of this rural community looking like, well, the pits.</p><p>Now residents want to turn Pitts into a pit stop featuring antiques, fine arts, pottery and Southern barbecue for travelers from Interstate 75, which runs 15 miles to the west through Cordele. They also want to make it a stop for an excursion train that occasionally runs from Cordele to Savannah.</p><p>"We actually have people who stop ... and take their pictures with the city limits sign," said Sandy Guest, mayor of the town of 300. "It guess it's so they can tell their friends they have been through the pits."</p><p>Locals face a daunting challenge in getting people to stop in the city for more than a laugh.</p><p>The roof on the town's small movie house has collapsed and now vines and weeds grow where patrons once watched "Gone With the Wind" and Roy Rogers. The rusty pumps at King's Garage stopped working back when regular gasoline cost only 61.9 cents a gallon. The outdoor staircase leading to second-floor offices at King's Mercantile Co., a two-story brick structure built in 1904, has rotted away.</p><p>Decades of rust and rot have taken a similar toll on other buildings in Pitts' two-block downtown, where farmers and their families used to arrive in mule-drawn wagons on Saturdays to buy supplies and borrow money to plant crops.</p><p>But now, the downtown is showing signs of life once again. On one corner, 73-year-old Emery Mathews is at work with his skill saw and chalk line, converting a service station into a flower shop.</p><p>Jackie Guest, the mayor's father-in-law, has purchased the mercantile building and plans to turn it into a general store.</p><p>Delano Braziel, a potter who returned to his birthplace after his retiring from teaching at Valdosta State University, has already transformed a portion of his father's old general store into a pottery shop. He plans to sell antiques in the building next door, he's purchased two buildings across the street for an art gallery and gardening store and he wants to move the town's old railroad depot back to town from his farm.</p><p>There are also plans to open a cabinet shop specializing in old-style furniture and a barbecue shop.</p><p>Braziel, like others in town, envisions a new life for Pitts as a destination for travelers looking for a quiet, small town to visit.</p><p>"It'd be a break from the interstate where you can see some of south Georgia," he said.</p><p>Guest said people have been talking about revitalizing the downtown for years, but it wasn't until Braziel began work that others joined in.</p><p>The demise of Pitts's downtown is similar to the decay in many other small Southern towns.</p><p>"The people left," Guest said. "Agriculture was mechanized. People had to move to town to get a job. They put in the big grocery and department stores."</p><p>Eventually, even those who remained in the small towns could shop in bigger towns because of improved transportation, Guest said.</p><p>Downtown revitalization is certainly not a new phenomenon. It has been sweeping the country for at least 20 years, thanks to funding provided by the state and federal governments and historic preservation groups.</p><p>"Pitts is a very small community," said Robin Nail, a state preservation planner in Baxley. "I imagine they've been influenced by seeing what a lot of other communities are doing."</p><p>Such projects can boost the tax base by supporting new businesses, they can preserve the historic core of communities and they can restore a sense of community pride, Nail said.</p><p>Similar effort are underway in many other towns. Gainesville has a new downtown square and Carrollton, a streetscape, said Paul Simo of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.</p><p>Harold Harris, of Cordele, who recently purchased the Pitts Stop, one of Pitts' two stores, said he feels right at home.</p><p>"They say it's a one-horse town because we have no red lights," the 41-year-old businessman said. "But I like the town. People are very friendly. They didn't know me, but they made me feel like family."</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x28639e8)</p><p>HASH(0x2863a90)</p><p>HASH(0x2863b74)</p>

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