TULSITA, TEXAS. Tulsita is on U.S. Highway 181 and Farm Road 798, two miles north of Pettus in northeastern Bee County. In 1917 George A. Kerr sold 340 acres to J. L. Courtney, who wanted the land for oil development. Thirteen years later, after the site had been surveyed and mapped, Courtney named it Tulsa after his previous home in Oklahoma. Since a Tulsa already existed in Texas, the post office that opened during the 1930s was named Tulsita instead. By 1958 the town had four businesses and fifty residents, but by 1968 its population had dropped to twenty-five. In 1990 the community reported one business and a population of twenty-five. The population was twenty in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grace Bauer, Bee County Centennial, 1858-1958 (Bee County Centennial, 1958).

Adrian D. Ramirez