McKinney

The plaque calls McKinney a hospital center, and the hospital began as a wartime Army project. In 1943 the United States Army built the 1,500-bed Ashburn General Hospital here. On May 3, 1948, a tornado struck the county seat, killing three people, injuring forty-three and destroying an estimated two million dollars in property. The Texas Electric interurban, which had served McKinney since 1908, ended its run that same year. By the mid-1980s McKinney, once the commercial center of Collin County, had become a commuter town for workers in Plano and Dallas.

What the plaque says

McKinney Founded 1845 by Collin McKinney, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. In Civil War, Gen. J.W. Throckmorton (later a governor of Texas) organized McKinney's Co.K, 6th Texas Cavalry, an outstanding confederate fighting unit. Manufacturing, trade and hospital center. 1963

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 4.6 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 23 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 33 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Site of Wilmeth-McKinney Homestead — steps away
• McLarry Cemetery — 1.3 mi
• Site of Muse Academy — 1.4 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of McKinney — 1.6 mi