BRANCH, TEXAS. Branch is on the shoreline of Lavon Lake eleven miles southeast of McKinney in southern Collin County. The settlement was named for J. T. Branch, who operated a general store there. A post office operated at the community from 1901 until 1903, when mail was routed through nearby Clear Lake. In 1960 the population of Branch was twenty-five; in 1980 and 1990 it was estimated at 447. The population remained unchanged in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Roy Franklin Hall and Helen Gibbard Hall, Collin County: Pioneering in North Texas (Quanah, Texas: Nortex, 1975). J. Lee and Lillian J. Stambaugh, A History of Collin County (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1958).

David Minor