City of Colleyville

City of Colleyville Municipal Water Report Info

Colleyville began as a rural settlement nestled between Big Bear and Little Bear Creek in northeastern Tarrant County. The first significant settlement occurred during the 1850s when Samuel C.H. Witten arrived from Missouri and established a farm along Little Bear Creek. He helped found the Spring Garden community, which flourished in the 1860s but declined in the 1870s as Bedford gained prominence.

Other early settlers from the upper South included Jonathan A. Riley (Kentucky, 1856), Civil War veteran Ryan Harrington (Kentucky, 1865), and William B. Cheek (Kentucky, 1869). Additional farmers arrived throughout the 19th century, including William Dunn (1875), the James R. Forbes family from Tennessee (1887), and French native Anthelm Bidault, who established his renowned orchards near Pleasant Run in 1897.

The communities of Pleasant Glade and Pleasant Run served the rural population with churches, schools, and stores. Pleasant Run Baptist Church, established in 1877, was the first church in what is now Colleyville. The railway (later known as the Cotton Belt Route) extended between Fort Worth and Grapevine in the late 1800s, passing through the village of Red Rock in 1888.

The nearby community of Bransford, centered around Felix G. Bransford's general store and post office, relocated to Red Rock that same year, which was then renamed Bransford. This new Bransford thrived with blacksmith shops, a clothing stable, four general stores, and a lodge hall shared by various fraternal organizations.

Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley, a Missouri native and Union Army veteran, moved to Texas in 1880 and settled in Bransford. During his 40 years of practice, he became one of the most respected physicians in northeast Tarrant County. The Colleyville name emerged when W.G. Couch opened a store on Glade Road south of Bransford in 1914, with the surrounding area gradually becoming known as "Colleyville."

Colleyville was officially incorporated on January 10, 1956. From a predominantly rural community with a population of about 1,500 in 1960, it grew to 6,700 by 1980 and approximately 11,300 by 1989. Today, its city limits border Grapevine and Euless (east), Bedford and Hurst (south), Keller and North Richland Hills (west), and Southlake (north).