PETTIT, TEXAS (Hockley County). Pettit is on Farm Road 303 twelve miles north of Levelland in northwestern Hockley County, on land that was once part of the Yellow House^qv and Slaughter ranches. It was named for John Pettit, who established a ranch in the area in 1922. The community developed as other families settled in the vicinity. Joe Bryant started the town's first store in 1926, and Jim Mason built a gin in 1929. A Pettit post office was established in 1935 with Truett Mauldin as postmaster. Pettit had an independent school district from 1928 to 1964, when it was consolidated with that of Levelland. In 1946 the town's population was about eighty to ninety, and it had three businesses and twenty homes. The Pentecostal Church of God bought some school buildings in 1958 and established the Great Plains Boys Ranch. In 1976 there was still a gin and a post office at Pettit. In 1980 and 1990 the town reported a population of twenty-six and a post office.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lillian Brasher, Hockley County (2 vols., Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1976).

William R. Hunt