Parris

Parris was just south of the site of present-day Melissa in central Collin County. The settlement was named for Thaddeus Parris, a Mexican War veteran, who built an ox-turned gristmill near the banks of the East Fork of the Trinity River in 1859. The gristmill attracted settlers during the next decade. Parris remained a community center for area farmers until sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.