Allen is a city in Collin County, Texas, United States, and a northern suburb in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its population was 104,627 at the 2020 census, and the United States Census Bureau estimated it at 113,447 as of July 1, 2025. The city is about 23 miles (37 km) north of downtown Dallas.
The Houston and Texas Central Railway established Allen in 1870 as a railroad town and named it in 1872 for Ebenezer Allen, a former attorney general of Texas who had promoted the railroad. It stayed a small farming community until the late 1960s. After that it grew quickly as Dallas and Plano expanded and Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport was built. Allen has a council–manager government. The city is home to the ECHL's Allen Americans and to Allen High School, one of the largest high schools in Texas.
Early history and the railroad
Before American settlement, the area was home to the Caddo, Comanche and other Indigenous peoples. Collin County was first settled between 1840 and 1860. The county was formed in 1846 from part of Fannin County, land that had been part of the Peters Colony. A 1998 Texas Historical Commission marker says fertile land and plentiful water drew settlers to the Allen area from the 1840s. It also says the area was well populated by 1876, when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad built a water supply stop on Cottonwood Creek.
A railroad purchasing agent established the town in 1870, and it was named Allen in 1872. A post office opened in 1876. The railroad made farming more commercial: the marker says the stop gave local farmers a commercial center, better equipment and wider markets, and the open prairie around it was divided into small family farms. On February 22, 1878, according to the city's historical account, a gang led by Sam Bass robbed a train at Allen. The Handbook of Texas says Bass "supposedly committed the first train robbery in the state" at Allen. Collin County describes it as one of the first train robberies in Texas.
By 1884 Allen had an estimated 350 residents, three churches, a school, a chair factory and a flour mill. In 1908 the Texas Traction Company (later the Texas Electric Railway) built an electric interurban line through the town between Denison and Dallas. The population reached 550 by 1915 but had fallen to about 400 by the mid-1940s. Interurban service ended in 1948.
Allen was incorporated in 1953, when it had a few hundred residents. It grew rapidly from the late 1960s, from 1,940 residents in 1970 to 8,314 in 1980. The Handbook of Texas attributes the growth to economic expansion in Dallas and Plano and to the construction of Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport. By 1990 Allen had 18,309 residents and was the third-largest town in Collin County. U.S. Highway 75 runs through the city.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Allen-based company Lyrick Studios produced the children's franchise Barney. Lyrick was bought in 2001 and merged into HIT Entertainment.
In 2012 the Allen Independent School District opened Eagle Stadium, an 18,000-seat, $60 million high school football stadium. It was paid for through a voter-approved $119 million bond package. The district closed the stadium in February 2014 after cracks were found in its concourse. An engineering firm hired by the district later found defects that were "primarily engineering failures." The architect, PBK Architects, and the builder, Pogue Construction, paid for repairs costing more than $10 million. The stadium reopened for graduation in June 2015, and football returned there in August 2015.
On May 6, 2023, a gunman opened fire at Allen Premium Outlets, killing eight people and injuring seven others. An Allen police officer who had been nearby on an unrelated call shot and killed the gunman, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia of Dallas. According to researchers and investigators, Garcia had expressed white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, but his specific motive was not established. The outlet center reopened in June 2023. On the first anniversary in 2024, the city held a remembrance event at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center and a citywide moment of silence at 3:36 p.m. A permanent 11-foot (3.4 m) stainless-steel memorial by Placzek Studios was also unveiled at the outlet center. It includes eight wind chimes, one for each victim.
Chris Schulmeister became mayor in 2026. In his campaign he said Allen had "transitioned from decades of rapid growth to a mature city" and listed downtown revitalization and aging infrastructure among his priorities. In January 2026 the city hosted the Warrior/ECHL All-Star Classic.
Allen is in southwestern Collin County, eight miles southwest of McKinney. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 26.48 square miles (68.58 km2), of which 26.40 square miles (68.38 km2) is land and 0.08 square miles (0.21 km2) is water.
The city lies in the Northern Blackland Prairie, where the soils are mostly clay and absorb water slowly. Rowlett Creek flows through Allen, Plano and Garland into Lake Ray Hubbard, a Dallas water-supply reservoir in the East Fork of the Trinity River basin. Cottonwood Creek, which flows through the original townsite, is part of the same watershed.
Allen borders Frisco to the northwest, McKinney to the north, Fairview to the northeast, Lucas to the east, Parker to the southeast, and Plano to the west, southwest and south.
Allen has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification), with long, hot summers and cool winters. In the Rowlett Creek watershed, which includes Allen, normal annual precipitation is about 40 to 41 inches, and August high temperatures average about 95 °F.
On the night of April 9–10, 2008, an EF1 tornado with estimated winds of 90 to 95 mph touched down near North Custer Road and Hedgcoxe Road in Allen and lifted near U.S. 75 and State Highway 121 in McKinney. About 50 homes in Allen were structurally damaged and about 300 reported some damage, and insured losses in the city approached $5 million. Shortly after midnight on October 21, 2019, during a tornado outbreak across North Texas, an EF0 tornado with peak winds of about 80 mph tracked 4.8 miles (7.7 km) east from west Allen across U.S. 75 into Fairview. It tore shingles from houses and knocked down trees and fences.
Between 2000 and 2020 the city became much more diverse. The share of residents who were non-Hispanic white fell from 83.2% to 51.0%, and the non-Hispanic Asian share grew from 3.7% to 21.4%. The Census Bureau's 2025 estimates put the Asian-alone share at 21.1% and the non-Hispanic white share at 47.4%.
At the 2020 census, Allen had 104,627 people, 35,491 households and 28,117 families. The median age was 37.8 years. Of the residents, 27.2% were under 18 and 10.3% were 65 or older. For every 100 females there were 95.2 males. All residents lived in urban areas.