Our Timeline
Closing the Post Office--1959
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The Federal Building served the City of McKinney and the surrounding area as a post office, postal savings bank, and government office for 46 years. Due to city growth, the building was scheduled to be replaced in 1941, but this was postponed because of WWII, and it did not close as a post office until 1959.
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Disaster Equipment--1961
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However, the land had been deeded to Collin County in 1940, and from 1959 until 1964, the county used the building as the headquarters for Civil Defense, and the Texas Department of Public Safety leased it as a driver’s license office. Former McKinney Mayor and local historian Captain Roy F. Hall founded the Collin County Historical Society in 1956.
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Former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, in front of the Collin County History Museum--1976
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By 1970, the building was being used as a warehouse by the county fire marshal. The building, badly in need of repair, was abandoned for several years. Rescue began in 1976, when former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, cut the ribbon dedicating it as a museum. Restoration took place six years before the building reopened as the Central Museum in the Old Post Office. Today, it is known as our Collin County History Museum.
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