Tulip, TX

Tulip is on Farm Road 2554 twelve miles north of Bonham in north central Fannin County. It was established in April 1836 by Daniel Rowlett, John and Edward Stephens, David Slack, Richard Locke, and other settlers, who called it Lexington. As the first permanent settlement in the county, it served as the first county seat when Fannin County was organized in 1837. A post office opened in Lexington in 1839. When Old Warren became county seat in 1840, however, Lexington came to be known as Tulip, a name derived from its location on the Tulip Bend of the Red River. A Tulip post office opened in 1875. By the middle 1880s a general store, a sawmill, a gristmill, a cotton gin, and a liquor store served area residents. In addition, a school and a Methodist church operated in the small farming community, which had a population of sixty-five in 1900. The land surrounding Tulip produced cotton, corn, wheat, oats, vegetables, and fruits. The post office closed in 1909. The local school closed sometime after 1900, and Tulip children began attending school in nearby Ivanhoe. In 2002 some forty-eight people lived in Tulip. Nearby farmland had mostly been turned into cattle ranches.