Parris, Texas is a community that once existed just south of Melissa in central Collin County near the banks of the East Fork[2] of the Trinity River.
In 1859 Thaddeus Parris, a Mexican–American War veteran for whom the community was named built an ox-turned gristmill[3] at this location. This attracted settlers of the area during the next decade and until sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century Parris remained a community center for area farmers.[4]