Larissa, is a rural community and abandoned town site in northwestern Cherokee County. Larissa lies west of US Highway 69, off Farm Road 855 and approximately half-way between Jacksonvile and Bullard. Larissa was originally settled by the Killough, Wood and Williams families. Larissa was the scene of the Killough Massacre, possibly the worst single Indian incident in the history of east Texas. The settlers had moved there from Talladega County, Alabama, in 1837. Following the massacre, it was not until 1846 and the removal of the Cherokee by Mirabeau B. Lamar that any significant resettlement took place. In that year, Thomas H. McKee, a Presbyterian minister who had immigrated from Lebanon, Tennessee, led an immigrant group to the area. Hoping to avoid the decadent lifestyle of nearby Talladega, known for its saloon and gambling dens, the McKee party moved north of that location to settle near the older Killough compound.  When T.N. McKee, Thomas' son, laid out a town site, the new town was given the name, Larissa, after the Grecian city of that name thought to have been a center of learning. The Larissa post office also opened in 1847, followed by a Masonic lodge the following year.

In 1848, McKee built a one-room schoolhouse, originally named Larissa Academy. In 1855, he secured financial support from the Brazos Synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and they assumed responsibility for the school, which was renamed Larissa College. Chartered by the State of Texas in 1856, it eventually boasted a three-story college building, two dormitories and a curriculum that included Latin, French, Spanish, chemistry, physics, rhetoric, logic and mathematics. It also boasted an observatory with a telescope said to have been more powerful than that at Yale University. When the nearby community of Talladega faded away in the 1850s, much of the commerce done there moved to Larissa, which by then was a vibrant small town with several stores, a salt works, a church, and, of course, Larissa College. Larissa was in its hey-day. The Civil War sapped much of the vitality of the community and decimated enrollment at Larissa College, forcing it to close for the duration. Reconstruction took its toll as well. The college resumed operations after the war, but lacking students and faculty, it never recovered. By 1870 Larissa College was forced to close. Its assets, including the telescope, were transferred to Trinity University. The college having developed as its reason for existence, the town of Larissa itself entered a period of steady decline and disappointment. In 1872, the Great Northern Railway line laid its tracks eight miles south of Larissa. That same year, a meningitis epidemic took a number of the remaining residents, and finally, in 1882, trackage for the Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad, which might otherwise have saved the town, was laid three miles east of Larissa. Those who had remained, including prominent founders of Larissa, moved on to the newly established community of Mount Selman, on the railroad.  

As of 1990, little remained at the town-site to suggest Larissa had ever been there, much less of the promise it seemed to offer. There is an historical marker at the site of the college, placed there in 1936 on the occasion of the Texas Centennial. Another monument stands at the site of the Killough Massacre and there are three cemeteries where there are interred many founders of the town, including members of the Killough and McKee families.