TULSA

TULSA, city in northeastern Oklahoma located on the Arkansas River. Sitting in the middle of some of the richest oil fields in the United States, Tulsa grew in conjunction with the rise of the railroad and oil industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Settled by the Creek tribe after the Trail of Tears in 1836, it was originally named Tulsee Town from the word Tullahassee or "old town." As more whites began to settle, the town changed its name to Tulsa in 1879 and incorporated as a city in 1898. The discovery of oil in the early 1900s expanded the city's economy. In 1921 racial tensions led to one of the most violent riots of the twentieth century, resulting in the deaths of an official number of thirty-six people, primarily African Americans, though unofficial estimates run as high as 250 to 400 people. The city's economy further benefited as electronics and aircraft manufacturing jobs arrived in the region during World War II. Though no longer the "oil capital of the world," Tulsa continues to have a very close relationship with the energy industry. The city has a total land area of 182.7 square miles and a 2000 Census population of 393,049 persons, up from 367,302 in 1990.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ellsworth, Scott. Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

Halliburton, R., Jr. The Tulsa Race War of 1921. San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1975.

Matthew L.Daley

See alsoCreeks .