Plainview, Texas

Maxwell and Edwin Lowden Lowe established a post office on March 18, 1887.

On July 3, 1888, the town received a charter, and it became the county seat in August the same year, when Hale County was organized.

In 1906, the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway reached Plainview, initiating an agricultural boom in the region.

In 1908, when the school was founded, the campus was more than a mile from the city limit.

In 1962 the Automitat, an underground home and bunker, was built in Plainview.

In 1969, country singer Jimmy Dean opened the Jimmy Dean Meat Company, and in 1971, Missouri Beef Packers established a large beef-processing plant.

The Museum of the Llano Estacado, now the Mabee Regional Heritage Center, opened in 1976, is located on the university grounds.

It was acquired from local owners by Hearst Communications in 1979.

The Steve Martin film Leap of Faith (1992) was filmed in and around Plainview.

Prior to 1993, virtually all stations broadcast from Lubbock and Amarillo markets were retransmitted by the local cable operator.

It is among the oldest newspapers in Texas still in publication, and became fully computer paginated in 1994, the same year it began publishing an online edition.

The current Region V headquarters opened in 1996 in a former Bank of America building.

=== 2000 census === As of the 2000 census, there were 22,336 people, 7,626 households, and 5,666 families residing in the city.

== Economy == In 2009, the Texas Department of State Health Services ordered the recall of all products produced by a processing facility near Plainview owned by Peanut Corporat...

=== 2010 census === As of the 2010 census, there were 22,194 people, 7,605 households, and _ families residing in the city.

A Cargill beef processing plant, then the largest employer in the city, closed in 2013 due to lack of incoming animals, a result of the 2010–2012 drought.

Until 2016, a water tower east of downtown bore the name and mascot of the fictional town on which the movie was set: Rustwater Bengals.

== Education == The city is served by the Plainview Independent School District, which enrolled 5,585 students as of 2018.

=== Racial and ethnic composition === === 2020 census === As of the 2020 census, there were 20,187 people, 7,418 households, and 5,024 families residing in the city.

== Demographics == As of the 2023 American Community Survey, there are 6,998 estimated households in Plainview with an average of 2.75 persons per household.