Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Sunnyvale, TX

Sunnyvale is a town in far eastern Dallas County, about 12 miles east of downtown Dallas on U.S. Highway 80, and it is the easternmost town lying entirely within Dallas County.

Sunnyvale was created on February 26, 1953, when four small farming communities — New Hope, Tripp, Hattersville, and Long Creek — merged and incorporated, largely to keep the growing city of Mesquite from annexing them.

The name Sunnyvale was picked by local schoolchildren in a contest; their first choice, "Sunnyville," turned out to be taken by another Texas community, so it was changed to Sunnyvale.

Sunnyvale has famously guarded its rural character: its original zoning allowed only single-family houses on lots of at least one acre.

In the 1960s Dallas took almost three square miles of Sunnyvale's land to build the Lake Ray Hubbard reservoir, which now laps at the town's edge.

Sunnyvale counted 7,893 residents at the 2020 census — a 53.9% jump from 5,130 in 2010 — spread across about 16.5 square miles of land.

Sunnyvale has about 2,573 households averaging 3.24 people each, and about 91.5% of its homes are owner-occupied.

The median value of an owner-occupied home in Sunnyvale is about $565,300, reflecting its shift from farmland to an affluent Dallas suburb.

Traces of the old hamlets survive in Sunnyvale, including the Tripp First Baptist Church, built in 1882, and the old New Hope School.