Ovilla is a city in Dallas and Ellis Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 4,304 at the 2020 census.

Ovilla, on upper Red Oak Creek in northern Ellis County, is the oldest town in the county. It began in 1844 as a fortified pact known as McNamara’s to repel Indian incursions. James McNamara arrived in 1843 gone his further wife, Joanna (Hale) McNamara as the first Peters Colony settlers of this area for which they traditional 640 acres that made going on the dawn of the locale that was future to be called ‘Shiloh’ for a genial creek and a newly formed church. The McNamaras arrived with new Peters colonists: the Billingsleys; Mrs. McNamara’s family, the McCommas’s; and James Sterrett (Mrs. McNamara’s brother-in-law, who established Sterrett, Texas). The marriage of James Sterrett to Clarinda (Hale) Squires of 7 Jul 1844 was the first marriage to be performed here within the far along boundaries of Ellis County, which was nevertheless within antiquated Robertson County at the time. James McNamara served as sergeant in Smith’s Company of Texas Mounted Volunteers during the War next Mexico in 1846–1847 along behind his brother-in-law, James Sterrett. The little village grew as further Peters Colony settlers arrived in the area to attend brush arbor meetings of the Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which was started by Rev. Finis E. King in 1847. James McNamara died in New Orleans 5 May 1852, and his widow liquified his assets and left Texas for the gold fields in Tuolumne County, California, with anything of her long-lasting maternal intimates members.

The church met in a brush arbor until 1853, when a log cabin, which served as both church and schoolhouse, was built. A frame church building was ended in 1872; in 1984, about 190 members nevertheless met in the structure, which had been enlarged and remodeled. The church was instrumental in disturbing Trinity University to Waxahachie in 1902 and in establishing a girls’ school in the easily reached town of Milford.

Although Ovilla was a successful farming community by the 1850s, it remained unnamed. Mrs. M. M. Molloy, wife of Rev. D. G. Molloy, formed the make known from the Spanish word villa. Ovilla continued to grow, and by the further on 1900s, had a read out office, a bank, a cotton gin, a pharmacy, a blacksmith shop, and several dry-goods stores. Its name office closed in 1906. Fires in 1918 and 1926 destroyed most of the downtown buildings, and this destruction, together once the fact that Ovilla was bypassed by railroads and major highways, led to a subside in growth.