Settlers of the Peters Colony moved into this area in the mid-1840s, naming it Plano (Spanish for “flat,” which bluntly describes the terrain), when the post office was established in 1852. The route of the Shawnee Trail brought cattle drives through the county in the pre–Civil War era. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad connected the town to Dallas in 1872, and the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway in 1888 gave Plano connections east and west. The area remained agricultural until 1970, when a land reappraisal raised taxes and the spread of Dallas arrived, simultaneously.
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