Allen

Welcome to Allen

Allen sits about 20 miles north of downtown Dallas in Collin County, with U.S. 75 (Central Expressway) running north-south straight through town and the Sam Rayburn Tollway (SH 121) tracing the western edge. Plano is the neighbor to the south, McKinney to the north, Frisco to the west, and Fairview and Lucas to the east. The housing is overwhelmingly single-family and master-planned, with most of it built after 2000, so buyers come here for newer homes in named communities like Twin Creeks, StarCreek, and Watters Crossing. Recent median prices have run in the mid-$400,000s to low $500,000s. The honest trade-off: you won't find much older or historic housing stock, and the market has slowed, with homes taking longer to sell than they did a couple of years ago.

Allen is served by Allen Independent School District, and it's the rare big-suburb district with a single high school. Every student in town funnels to the same place:

• Elementary: 18 campuses across the district (grades K–6)
• Middle: Curtis, Ereckson, and Ford middle schools (grades 7–8)
• Freshman: Lowery Freshman Center (grade 9)
• High: Allen High School (grades 10–12), with roughly 5,200 students and one of the largest UIL athletic programs of any high school in Texas

Allen is built around its trails. The city maintains more than 80 miles of hike-and-bike paths, most of them running along the creek greenbelts that thread between neighborhoods. Celebration Park is the anchor, 97 acres with sports fields, a playground and sprayground, and walking trails. Spirit Park adds another 75 acres of fields, fitness stations, and trails. The Watters Trail follows the creek corridor for roughly four miles down toward Watters Creek Village, so a lot of residents can walk or ride from their front door to dinner without touching a road.

The signature event is the Allen USA Celebration, a free late-June party at Celebration Park that's been running for more than 30 years and puts on one of the biggest fireworks shows in Collin County. The Credit Union of Texas Event Center (in The Village at Allen) hosts more than 100 events a year and is home ice for the Allen Americans hockey club and home court for the Dallas Sidekicks indoor soccer team. Watters Creek Village runs free live music on its Village Green through the warmer months, easy patio-dining nights out.

Allen Premium Outlets is the retail magnet, a Simon center on Stacy Road with 120-plus stores running from Polo Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors to Nike and The North Face. Watters Creek at Montgomery Farm is the opposite feel: a creekside, mixed-use village with boutiques, restaurants, patio dining, and a central lake with a jogging path. The Village at Allen rounds out the dining and shopping around the event center.

Allen started as a railroad town. The Houston and Texas Central Railway established it in 1872 and named it for Ebenezer Allen, a former Texas attorney general who promoted the line. The railroad built a water stop on Cottonwood Creek, and an 1874 stone dam from that operation is still standing. Allen's first brush with fame came on February 22, 1878, when a gang led by Sam Bass pulled off what's often called the first train robbery in Texas. It stayed small for a long time, three churches and a flour mill and about 350 people by 1884, and didn't incorporate as a city until 1953. The real growth came after 2000, when Allen filled in with master-planned neighborhoods and grew past 100,000 residents.

Allen is a family play. The single-high-school setup means the whole city rallies around one team on Friday nights, and the master-planned neighborhoods (Twin Creeks and StarCreek especially) give buyers newer homes with strong resale. One local tip: lean on the trail system when you tour, because which greenbelt a house backs up to matters as much as the floor plan here. Watch the timing, though. The market has cooled from its 2021–2022 peak, and homes are sitting longer, so pricing right and reading the comps carefully is the difference between a quick sale and a stale listing.

• City of Allen — Parks & Recreation (Life in Allen)
• Allen Independent School District
• Visit Allen (Convention & Visitors Bureau)
• Allen Heritage Guild — local history