Blasingame Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture Plainview, Texas, in the year 1910. The railroad had rolled in and brought money and ambition right along with it.

The town was in the middle of what the marker calls a period of dramatic economic development, and a man named J.W. Pipkin decided that moment was exactly the right time to build something that would stand out. He constructed a Colonial Revival residence, the kind of place that said, plainly and without apology, that something serious was happening here.

And something serious was. The year 1918 rolls around, and a man named F.E. Blasingame and his wife Mary, born a Rimes, purchased that home.

Now, those two names are worth remembering, because what F.E. and Mary Blasingame did next is the real heart of this story. They operated local restaurants. Sounds simple enough, until you hear that they kept at it for over sixty years.

Over sixty years of feeding their neighbors, welcoming strangers, pouring coffee, and turning those restaurants into what the marker calls popular social gathering places. That is not a business, friends. That is a life's work.

That is the kind of institution a town builds its memory around. And through all of it, that Colonial Revival home J.W. Pipkin raised in 1910 stayed in the Blasingame family's hands, all the way until 1981.

Some houses hold a family. Some families hold a house. The Blasingames managed both.

What the marker says

When J.W. Pipkin constructed this Colonial Revival residence in 1910, Plainview was experiencing a period of dramatic economic development as a railroad center. In 1918 the home was purchased by F.E. Blasingame and his wife Mary (Rimes). For over sixty years they operated local restaurants which became popular social gathering places under their management. The home remained in the Blasingame's ownership until 1981. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982