Her Neighbor Donated Land to Make a Park. The Town Ignored the Deed for a Data Center

Back in the day, Pamela Griffin's family was barred from buying city land in the small town of Taylor, Texas. "Black and brown people weren’t allowed to buy in the city limits of Taylor. So we had to buy on the outskirts," she told 404 Media. So, her grandmother and father built their own community outside, near farming land—a childhood she remember's as one of playing baseball in empty lots because there weren't many other things to do. She remembers that sometimes the balls would end up in Mr. Bland's lot, a neighboring farmer who told Griffin's father that he'd donate the land to turn into a park. He even put it in a deed almost 30 years ago.

The Bland family deeded land to the City of Taylor, Texas, on the condition the city use it for a public park. For the nominal fee of $10, the farmers granted the 87 acres to a public trust in 1999. Taylor sold it to Blueprint, a data center developer, for $10 million in 2025. Now the land that was supposed to belong to the community will become a 135,000 square foot data center. Read now

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