Biohazard Cleanup Near The Quarry Melissa, TX

Melissa is a fast-growing city in Collin County, Texas, about seven miles northeast of McKinney, and part of the Dallas metropolitan area.

Settlers first reached the Melissa area in the 1840s as part of the Peters Colony, drawn by the rich Blackland Prairie soil near the Elm Fork of the Trinity River.

The town of Melissa was laid out in 1872 when the Houston and Texas Central Railway arrived; before that, the nearby Highland community, settled by 1846, had the area's post office from 1853.

How Melissa got its name is still disputed - it may honor Melissa Quinlan, daughter of a Houston and Texas Central Railway official, or Melissa Huntington, daughter of railroad magnate C. P. Huntington.

Melissa's own post office opened on May 16, 1873, with James R. Rogers as its first postmaster.

By 1886 Melissa had a flour mill and two cotton gins and was shipping about 3,000 bales of cotton a year.

From 1908, Melissa was a stop on the Texas Electric Railway's Denison-to-Dallas line, the first interurban line in Texas.

On April 13, 1921, a tornado tore through Melissa, killing 13 people and injuring 54.

Melissa shrank for decades - just 557 people in 1990 - before the Dallas suburbs reached it: the population jumped from 1,350 in 2000 to 4,695 in 2010 and 13,901 in the 2020 census.

The Census Bureau estimated Melissa's population at about 29,969 in 2025, more than double its 2020 count in just five years.