Before any of this, there was a stopping point. Around 1758, a small settlement called Mestre D'Armas took shape along the Estrada Real - the royal road that linked the gold-mining regions of Goiás and Mato Grosso to the coastal ports where the precious metal shipped out to Portugal. Unlike towns founded directly on mining, Mestre D'Armas was logistical: a rest stop for muleteers, a place to re-shoe animals and resupply. Its name, tradition says, honored a skilled blacksmith-armorer who became a reference for anyone crossing the region. For most of the 19th century the settlement grew slowly, sustained by subsistence agriculture and cattle. On 19 August 1859 it was elevated to District of Peace under the neighboring municipality of Formosa. Political emancipation came on 19 March 1891, when it became the independent town of Mestre D'Armas. One year later, on the same soil, the Cruls Commission arrived to survey the future site of a national capital.

The early 20th century brought name changes. In 1910 the town became Altamir - a name that never took. On 14 July 1917 it took a new name, Planaltina, which means something like "Heart of the Plateau" or "of the high plains." The geography justified it: central Brazil at over 1,000 meters of elevation, open cerrado in every direction. For the next forty years Planaltina existed as a modest municipality of Goiás, occasionally hosting officials investigating where Brazil might put its capital. It was the base for the Cruls Mission in 1892. It hosted President Dutra's capital commission in 1945. In 1922 the foundation stone of the future capital was placed near town, on Centenário Hill. Planaltina, in other words, was the center of every plan to move Brazil's capital inland - which is exactly why the capital, when it finally came, consumed most of what Planaltina was.

In 1960 the Federal District became real. The municipality of Planaltina ceded most of its territory, including its historic seat, to the new capital. The portion that remained in Goiás was legally a municipality but physically a municipality without a town - it had farmland, streams, scattered settlers, and no government. A site had to be chosen for a new seat, and the choice fell on Fazenda Brasília, owned by Joaquim Gonçalves. Early development mirrored the capital being built 40 kilometers away: clear the cerrado, put up wooden shacks, call it a city. The resemblance earned it a nickname almost immediately - Brasilinha. In 1967 a city hall was completed. A local plebiscite restored the historic name Planaltina, though for a brief window the town experimented with São Gabriel de Goiás before popular demand forced a reversion. The new Planaltina and the old were now two distinct municipalities, separated by state lines and a history both shared.

The construction of Brasília brought waves of migrant workers, and when the federal government restricted squatting in the planned capital, many of those families were pushed into satellite towns. Planaltina - newly built, just across the state line - absorbed far more than the 22,000 housing lots its planners had envisioned. Within three decades its population passed 80,000. Today the city is part of the Integrated Development Region of the Federal District and Surroundings (RIDE), and its economy runs on two engines. Agribusiness supplies the first - soybeans, corn, cassava, citrus, and cattle spread across the cerrado of northern Goiás. Commuting supplies the second. At least one member of every family, according to local studies, works in Plano Piloto, Brasília's central zone. Those workers leave before dawn and return after dark, spending hours on buses stuck in Brasília's notorious commuter traffic. Planaltina ceded its historic center to form the federal capital and was never compensated for the loss - a grievance that still marks its politics.

Beyond the commuter corridor, Planaltina opens onto some of central Brazil's most spectacular protected land. It is the gateway to Chapada dos Veadeiros, one of the country's most beautiful national parks, a few hours north. Within its own territory lies Lagoa Formosa - "beautiful lake" - with 17 square kilometers of surface, the largest natural lake in the state of Goiás. The source of the Maranhão River rises nearby, flowing north to join the Tocantins and eventually the Atlantic. The municipality reaches toward Chapada dos Veadeiros' ecological preservation zone, and the cerrado here still holds some of its original variety - grasslands, gallery forests, and the scarred red earth that central Brazil is known for. The municipality has been called the "Mother of Brasília," and in a way the title is exact - Planaltina gave birth to the capital and then had to rebuild itself from what was left.