Pittsboro, Mississippi: 30 Minutes From Everything

For all the eyes locked on a hearing about the eligibility of Trinidad Chambliss, welcome to the geographical oddity known as Pittsboro, Mississippi.

Now let me go ahead and help you out, because if you have never been there, you are going to ask the same question everybody asks.

“Where is Pittsboro?”

And I am going to give you the same answer I have given my whole life.

You know that sharp curve between Bruce and Calhoun City? That’s it.

That is Pittsboro. You hit that curve, you are here. You straighten back up, you might already be gone.

30 minutes from everything, Pittsboro has a population floats around 150 to 160 folks, depending on the season, the family reunions, and who has come back home for a while.

Prime example: I moved to Fulton for work. Six years later, I get a summons for jury duty… in Pittsboro. That is when you realize Pittsboro does not really let you leave. It just gives you a little space and keeps your name handy.

That is the deal with places like this. Small enough to know your people. Stubborn enough to remember you.

And for a few days in February, this little spot on the map is going to get said out loud on phones and TVs by folks who could not point to it if you gave them three guesses. Pittsboro is about to be the center of the sports universe, whether it asked for it or not.

Which is funny, because Pittsboro has been quietly doing big things for a long time.

For starters, this town has a state championship. The Pittsboro Panthers won the boys basketball state title in 1948.

Back then it was Class B under the Mississippi High School Literary and Athletic Association. That was the era where the gym was the social media, the movie theater, and the town hall all rolled into one.

Pittsboro High eventually consolidated. The state pushed bigger districts, more resources, more structure. Kids became part of the Calhoun County School District.

That is how it goes. Towns shrink. Schools merge. The sign changes. The stories stay.

Speaking of signs, Pittsboro almost had a whole different name.

Originally it was going to be Orrsville, named after J.A. Orr. Then at the last minute somebody somewhere said, “Nah, let’s call it Pittsboro,” after Pittsboro, North Carolina.

I love that. That is the most small-town meeting room moment imaginable. Somebody had a plan, somebody changed it, and now everybody for generations just lives with it. If you want to understand Pittsboro, start there.

Also, Pittsboro is literally where it is because a man donated land and said, in effect, “Well… hell, just build it here.”

When Calhoun County was formed in 1852, the county seat was briefly at a place called Hartfords. Then they surveyed the geographical center, and Ebenezer Gaston donated 160 acres to move the town to where it sits now.

Now, if you are the kind of person who likes digging into history, Pittsboro has a little twist for you.

On December 22, 1922, a fire destroyed almost all of the county’s early records. That one blaze is why tracing genealogy in Calhoun County before the 1920s can make a grown person want to pull their hair out. You can hear the stories, you can know the names, you can even point to the old places, but the paperwork gets real thin, real fast.

So, “my granddaddy said” counts as a primary source.

But let me tell you what people in Pittsboro remember without needing a record book.

The hill.

If you grew up there back in the day, you know exactly which hill I mean. The big one between City Hall and what used to be the M&M store, which is now Lene & Tene’s.

That hill is childhood. That hill is winter fun. That hill is why half the town has a story that starts with, “You remember that time we went down it on a car hood…”

When it iced or snowed even a little, folks showed up with sleds, sheets of cardboard, car hoods whatever could get slung by a 4-wheeler. It didn’t have to make sense. It just had to be able to fly.

And if you were lucky or unlucky, depending on your perspective, that same area was also the site of the occasional New Year’s fireworks show, which is a polite way of saying bottle rocket wars. In a bigger town that would have gotten shut down quick.

And that is the stuff you cannot explain to somebody who only knows Pittsboro as a dot on a GPS. Pick-up basketball at the firehouse. Exploring the abandoned schoolhouse. Running from the neighbor’s dogs because everybody had at least one dog that took its job too seriously. Church on Sundays. People waving even if they do not know your name… yet.

It is was all normal. That is the point.

Now, if you want the official landmark, the thing Pittsboro wears like a badge, it is the courthouse.

Pittsboro is famous for its courthouse and it should be. The original red brick courthouse was built in 1856. In 1861, when Mississippi decided to leave the Union, the whole Secession Convention era had significant local events tied to that building. That courthouse was not just where people handled business. It was where history walked in the front door.

Then the 1922 fire took that building too. They rebuilt with a white wood structure and eventually the modern facility built around 2011.

So the courthouse story is Pittsboro’s story. Built, lost, rebuilt, rebuilt again. Still standing in the middle of town, still the place people point to when they say, “That’s Pittsboro.”

And for a town this small, Pittsboro has produced some names that got out and did things.

Dennis Murphree, a two-time governor of Mississippi, was born in the area. Jack Knight made it to professional baseball. Ike Knox became a well-known surgeon and a former college athlete at Ole Miss.

Not bad for a town you can describe as a curve in the road.

So yeah, the sports world is about to say “Pittsboro, Mississippi” a lot louder than it usually does. Some folks will look it up. Some folks will mispronounce it. Some folks will act like they just discovered it.

But the locals will just smile a little, because we know.

There is not a lot to Pittsboro.

But there is a lot in it.