Whitt

Whitt is at the intersection of Farm roads 2891 and 52, twenty miles northwest of Weatherford in northwestern Parker County. Settlement began in the early to mid-1870s, and the community was named in honor of a man named Whitt. Because of its location on the stage line between Weatherford and Jacksboro, Whitt became a retail and social center for area farmers. Postal service began in 1877. In the early 1880s the Methodist Conference of Churches selected Whitt as the site to establish its district high school, Parker Institute. By the mid-1880s Whitt had an estimated 150 residents, three churches, a school, the weekly Whitt Moon, and twenty businesses. Area farmers processed their crops at the town's two steam gristmills and cotton gin. By 1900 Whitt had a population of 500. The Half-Way House, so nicknamed because it was equidistant on the stage line between Weatherford and Jacksboro, continued to serve area farmers as a hotel and shipping point well into the twentieth century. Like other Parker County towns bypassed by the railroads, Whitt began to decline in the early 1900s, and the Great Depression accelerated the process. In 1950 the number of residents had declined to ninety, and that figure decreased over the next thirty years. In 1980 through 2000 thirty-eight residents were reported.