Ten things worth knowing about Wittmann

Wittmann is small enough that most of its story fits on a few pages, and a good share of it was written down by the daughter of the man who laid out the town. Here are ten things worth knowing about the community on US 60, each one worth passing along the next time someone asks where, exactly, you live.

1. It started as Nadaburg

Long before there was a town, the railroad had a siding here, and the siding had a name: Nadaburg. The name is usually explained as a mix of the Spanish word nada, nothing, and the German burg, castle. The school district still carries the old name, which is why Wittmann's students go to Nadaburg schools.

2. The first school was a board-and-batten shack by a well

The land around the siding was opened to homesteading for stock raising by a federal act of December 29, 1916. William Hovey Griffin, born in Texas in 1875, filed his homestead claim in September 1920, drilled a well and built a small board-and-batten house beside it. That house was the first school. Four of the older Griffin boys camped next to it, eight or nine children came in from neighboring homesteads, and Helen Carpenter was the first teacher.

3. Some streets are named for one family

In 1920 Griffin plotted a town site on his land and gave a block of it to the county for a school. The site was surveyed and recorded in July 1924, and Griffin family names went onto the street signs. Hovey Avenue and Myers Street are two of them, and they are still on the map today.

4. The town is named for a promise that wasn't kept

In 1926, lots and acreage were handed to Joseph Wittmann in payment for his promise to bring irrigation water to Nadaburg by damming the Hassayampa River. The town took his name, but the Hassayampa was never dammed and no irrigation water reached Nadaburg. Around 1946 a group of residents sued to get their property back and recovered about half of it.

5. A land offer kept the school open

By 1939 there were so few children in the district that the county threatened to close the school. Griffin answered by advertising in distant newspapers: any family with two or more school-age children who moved to Wittmann could have five acres or two town lots. Several families came, among them the Belmonts, Bryants, Everetts, Fergusons and Janeses, and the school stayed open.

6. The lights came on in 1944

The highway through town was first paved in 1932 and widened in 1943. Electricity did not reach Wittmann until 1944. Before then only the school and a few businesses along the highway had gasoline generators, and the school kept its generator in a tin garage out back so there could be lights for evening programs. Christmas was a community affair: families shared the school's tree, the children put on plays and carols, and Griffin often wore the school's Santa suit.

7. The Little Red School House is still in use

The permanent schoolhouse on Griffin's donated block went up in the early 1920s. Today the small red building is the boardroom where the Nadaburg Unified School District's governing board meets, more than a century after the district's first permanent school was built.

8. The first high school arrived in 2024

Nadaburg became a unified K-12 district in 2007, but for years its high schoolers attended neighboring districts. Mountainside High School opened in temporary space in 2019 with 48 students, and its own campus on Crozier Road welcomed students in September 2024: two buildings on 80 acres with STEM labs, art studios, a gym and fields for football, baseball, softball and soccer. The school colors are Columbia blue, black and silver, and the mascot is the wolf.

9. Winter is one of the wet seasons

Wittmann gets about nine and a half inches of rain a year, according to federal climate normals for the station just outside town, and the two wettest months are not in the summer monsoon. February averages about 1.45 inches and January about 1.38, a little more than August. Winter days are mild too, with average highs around 65 degrees, while July's average high is close to 105.

10. The desert here has hosted carmakers and farmers alike

The open land around Wittmann has drawn some unusual neighbours. A 5,500-acre proving ground near town, with a simulated city, a four-mile oval and a freeway course, was used by Fiat Chrysler for hot-weather testing and then by Apple for its car project. Waymo bought it in June 2026 and plans to use it for testing and operator training.

The same dry ground has proved friendlier to growing things than its reputation suggests. Since 2014, Duane and Lori Hebert have turned a few acres of raw desert on West Radford Road into Edge of Nowhere Farm, with more than 200 fruiting trees, vines and shrubs and pastured livestock, under the motto that if they can farm on the edge of nowhere, so can you. It is a fitting line for a town whose first name meant nothing at all.