Plano, city in northeastern Texas, in Collin and Denton counties, in the northern portion of a large metropolitan region centered on Dallas. Situated in the blackland prairie, it is a commercial and manufacturing center; products include electronic, computer, and telecommunications equipment; brass items; compact disks; copper and aluminum wire; lighting fixtures; and printed materials. Several companies, including J. C. Penney Company and Frito Lay Inc., have corporate headquarters in Plano. The Heritage Farmstead, formerly the Ammie Wilson House, is an 1891 homestead that was once part of a sheep farm and is now a museum. The city hosts a hot-air balloon festival each September.
The community, settled in the 1840s, developed as a small agricultural center after the coming of the railroad in 1872. A fire almost destroyed the community in 1881, but it survived as a cotton and cattle center. Plano was incorporated as a town in 1873 and then as a city in 1961. Plano's main growth began in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1970s, when it annexed territory. The city's name, chosen in 1851, was thought (incorrectly) to be Spanish for “plain,” a reference to its geographical setting.
