TUNIS, TEXAS. Tunis is on the west bank of the Brazos River four miles northwest of Snook in eastern Burleson County. Anglo-American settlement in this area south of Reeds Creek began in the early 1820s. The town was founded in the mid-1800s amid several large antebellum Texas plantations, for which it became the trading center. A post office operated there from 1878 to 1910. The community was also referred to as Dogtown because of the dog races held every Sunday at a local racetrack. In the early 1890s a number of Italian immigrants settled in the Tunis vicinity, and in the late 1800s the town had a restaurant, a cotton gin, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a mortuary, a school, and a church. At one time four physicians practiced in the community. Tunis had an estimated 187 residents in 1904, and an estimated 100 in 1936, when it reported two businesses. Its population climbed to about 150 in 1941. In 1945 the Tunis school was merged with the Snook Independent School District. Farm Road 166 was extended through the town in the 1950s. The New Jerusalem Church and the Old Bethlehem Church were in the township in the late twentieth century. In 1990 the town had a general store and an estimated 150 residents. The population remained the same in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burleson County Historical Society, Astride the Old San Antonio Road: A History of Burleson County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1980).
