McKinney, Texas

Everything McKinney is known for

1 song mention this city 5 artists from here

Music in McKinney

Songs About McKinney

The Killing Season
A Tribe Called Quest
5%
"Turn the pool party into the one from McKinney"

Artists From McKinney

M
Madi Davis
pop Pop: 33
J
Joe Allison
country Pop: 25
T
The Excels
rock Pop: 14
J
J. Michael Tatum
other Pop: 6
J
Jack Tasty
country Pop: 1

Rivers & Roads in Song near McKinney

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near McKinney.

Interstate 45 2 songs Trinity River 8 songs Interstate 35 27 songs Interstate 20 10 songs Red River 50 songs Sabine River 10 songs

History of McKinney

The Muncey Massacre: Collin County's Last Fatal Raid RoadyGoat

1840

In the fall of 1844, Jeremiah Muncey and his family were killed in an Indian raid at their homestead on the south bank of Rowlett Creek in what is now north Plano, between present-day Plano Road and Jupiter Road. Muncey and his neighbor McBain Jameson had settled the area in the early 1840s. The raiders camped upstream the night before; as they moved down the creek they came upon two boys hunting, killing the Rice boy while the Searcy boy escaped. At the Muncey place they killed Jeremiah Muncey, his wife, a three-year-old child, and Jameson; two of the Muncey boys were carried off and never found, while another son survived only because he was away at the Throckmorton settlement. Neighbors Leonard Searcy and William Rice discovered the bodies and rushed to their own sons hunting nearby. The site and the victims' graves lie about a mile northwest of the 1976 Texas Historical Commission marker on Spring Creek Parkway. Though Indian raids continued across Texas into the late 1800s and were fought by the Texas Rangers, the Muncey Massacre is remembered as the last fatal Indian raid in Collin County.

9.8 mi away

The Candy Montgomery Case - Wylie, Texas, 1980 RoadyGoat

1980

In the small town of Wylie, Texas, on a Friday the thirteenth in June of nineteen eighty, one of the most unsettling murder cases in Texas history unfolded behind a closed door. Two women — Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore — were both churchgoing mothers and members of the First United Methodist Church of Lucas. Candy had been carrying on a months-long affair with Betty's husband, Allan Gore. When Betty confronted her, a struggle broke out over an ax. What started as a confrontation ended with forty-one blows. Betty Gore was dead. Candy Montgomery was arrested, tried, and — in one of the most stunning verdicts in Texas courtroom history — found not guilty. She pleaded self-defense. On October thirtieth, nineteen eighty, nine women and three men believed her. HBO's Love and Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen, brought the case back to national attention in twenty twenty-three. Candy Montgomery quietly moved away. Betty Gore's family has lived with it ever since.

13.9 mi away

Farmersville's Notorious Son: Tex Watson RoadyGoat

1945

Charles "Tex" Watson (born December 2, 1945) grew up in Farmersville, Texas, in Collin County, where he was an honor student, football captain, and newspaper editor at Farmersville High School before attending the University of North Texas in Denton. In 1967 he moved to California and fell in with the cult led by Charlie Manson, living with the group at the Spahn Ranch movie set. On August 8-9, 1969, acting on Manson's orders, Watson led the group that carried out the Tate-LaBianca murders -- killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at a home on Cielo Drive, then Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night, seven victims in two nights. Watson fled to Texas but was extradited to California, and in 1971 he was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. His death sentence was commuted to life in 1972. He later became a born-again Christian and ordained minister and remains incarcerated in California.

16.3 mi away

Christmas Attack of 1842 — Collin County Frontier

1842

On Christmas morning 1842 in Collin County, Texas, two frontier families were attacked by a raiding party. Both men were killed. Mrs. Clements held the cabin with a rifle while Mrs. Whisler survived by hiding under creek driftwood for hours, then wading miles downstream — clothing stripped by briars, streaming blood — to reach the settlement road. First published in the McKinney Advocate, April 3, 1880.

Historical Account →

Collin County Christmas Attack - 1842

1842

On Christmas Day 1842, Indians attacked settlers Clements and Whisler in Collin County. Clements was killed with a tomahawk; his wife drove the raiders off at gunpoint. Mrs. Whisler hid under driftwood in a flooded creek while Indians stood on the bank above her.

Collin McKinney

1836

Texas patriot and statesman. One of committee of five that wrote the Texas Declaration of Independence; one of its fifty-nine signers, March 2, 1836. Served in House of Representatives, Republic of Texas. In recognition of his distinguished service the county and county seat of Collin County bear his name. Born in New Jersey, April 17, 1766. Died in this house, September 9, 1861. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Historical Marker →

Allison, Joe Marion

1955

Joe Marion Allison was an influential disc jockey, songwriter, publisher, recording executive, and producer of country music . He was born in McKinney, Texas, on October 3, 1924, and attended East Van Zandt Elementary School in Fort Worth. From there, he went to junior high in McKinney and then to Denison High School in Denison, Texas, where he graduated in 1939. Allison enrolled in Murray Junior College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. In 1943 he landed his first radio station job on KPLT in Paris, Texas. He then moved to KMAC in San Antonio in 1944. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II , Allison joined country singing star Tex Ritter 's show as an emcee and toured the United States and Canada with Ritter's outfit. In 1946 Ritter had a Number 3 country hit with "When You Leave, Don't Slam the Door," a song Allison co-wrote. The tune helped launch Joe Marion Allison's successful songwriting career. In 1947 Allison moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and worked at WDAI radio. He subsequently moved to Nashville in 1949 and worked at radio station WMAK. Soon Allison, who would be known by his radio monikers "Jamboree Joe" and "Uncle Joe," had his own daily radio show on WSM and WSIX, featuring such popular artists as Anita Kerr, Brenda Lee, and Chet Atkins. In 1952 Allison moved to the Los Angeles area, where he took over singer Tennessee Ernie Ford's previous slot on KXLA, a radio station licensed out of Pasadena, California. While in California, Allison ventured into television, appearing on such shows as Town Hall Party on KTTV and hosting and coproducing his own program Country America on ABC, which featured such up-and-comers as Gordon Terry, Glen Campbell, and Billy Strange. It was during this time that he assisted in founding the Country Music Disc Jockey Association, the forerunner of the Country Music Association (CMA). Allison secured his reputation as a highly-regarded songwriter with a number of popular compositions. He wrote "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" for Faron Young in 1955. Teen idol Tommy Sands performed "Teen Age Crush" in 1957, and that same year Jeannie Black recorded "He'll Have to Stay." Allison's best-known song, "He'll Have to Go," was recorded by Jim Reeves in 1960 and spent fourteen weeks at Number 1 on the country charts and also reached Number 2 on the pop charts. In 1962 Hank Cochran scored a hit with "I'd Fight the World," which he co-wrote with Allison. That same song became a posthumous hit for Reeves in 1974. Allison's wife Audrey co-wrote a number of songs, including "Teen Age Crush," "He'll Have to Stay," and "He'll Have to Go." By the early 1960s, Allison worked both as a manager for Central Songs, a publishing company based in Hollywood, and as head of the country music division for Liberty Records. It was in this latter capacity that he signed Willie Nelson to the singer's first recording contract in 1960. Allison produced early recordings by Hank Cochran and helped revive western swing legend Bob Wills 's career. Allison also started an international country radio show on the Armed Forces Radio Network. He was integral in expanding country music's popularity by writing and producing sales presentations for CMA that persuaded advertisers and broadcasters to program country music in major markets across the United States. He successfully pitched the idea of a CMA awards program to network television. He was also instrumental in securing property from the city of Nashville for the first Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame. In the mid-1960s he was director of the country division of Dot Records. By the late 1960s, Allison was working as an independent producer, helping turn out such hit songs as Roy Clark's "The Tips of My Fingers" and "Yesterday When I Was Young," as well as Hank Thompson 's "Smoky the Bar." From 1970 to 1972 Allison headed the country music division at Paramount Records in Nashville. While there he signed popular country singer-songwriters Tommy Overstreet and Joe

Tsha Handbook →

Heard, Bessie Rollins

1964

Bessie (Miss Bessie, Miss Bess) Heard, founder of the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, daughter of John Spencer and Rachel Caroline (Wilson) Heard, was born at McKinney, Texas, on May 26, 1886. Her father, a native of Van Buren, Arkansas, had moved to McKinney after the Civil War . With his brother, S. D. Heard, he started the Heard Mercantile Company and other Collin County enterprises. Bessie had four sisters, two of whom died in infancy. She attended McKinney Collegiate Academy and, from 1903 to 1906, Mary Baldwin College in Stanton, Virginia. At the age of thirty she entered Parson's School of Interior Design in New York City. After graduation she worked for a few years for Hallaby Galleries in Dallas. Bessie Heard was a charter member of the McKinney Art Club, the Delphian Society, and the McKinney Garden Club. She was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in McKinney. In later years she was a life member of the National Audubon Society and belonged to many other conservation organizations. In 1916, as a young lady, she organized a birdhouse-building contest for local children, with prizes for the winners. She also conducted a tree-planting project around the town square. In 1937 she obtained a charter for the McKinney library and helped raise funds to buy books and purchase a building. She helped form a McKinney chapter of the American Red Cross during World War I and was active in it through World War II . Miss Bessie collected nature prints, including lithographs by John James Audubon , Chinese art, butterflies, rocks and minerals, and sea shells. She kept her collections in a room at home and would often invite groups in to see her collections and hear her talk about them. In her middle seventies, upon the advice of John Ripley Forbes, president of the Natural Science for Youth Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia, she founded her own museum, using her collections as a nucleus. In 1964 she set up a charitable foundation, purchased 207 acres of land south of McKinney, and, in her eightieth year, began building the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary. The facility opened to the public in 1967 and grew steadily afterward. In the 1980s the museum building comprised 25,000 square feet, with exhibits of natural history, nature art, and live native animals. By 1993 the wildlife sanctuary had grown to 273 acres with nature trails and a constructed wetland area. It attracted more than 75,000 visitors annually and carried on a variety of educational programs for all ages. Among many honors, Miss Heard was named McKinney Citizen of the Year (1966) and an honorary life member of the Texas Congress of Parents and Teachers (1971); she received the Founder's Award of the Natural Science for Youth Foundation (1973) and the Emily Smith Distinguished Alumna Award from Mary Baldwin College (1975). She died at her home in McKinney on March 22, 1988, just a few weeks short of her 102d birthday.

Tsha Handbook →

McKinney, Collin

1836

Collin McKinney, land surveyor, merchant, politician, and lay preacher, was born on April 17, 1766, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, second of ten children of Daniel and Massie (Blatchley) McKinney (many variants of his mother's names occur in the sources). Early in the 1770s he migrated with his family to Virginia. In these early years the family was on the move, and later McKinney helped to provide for the family while his father was fighting the British in the Revolutionary War. Consequently he had no opportunity for formal schooling. After the war he and his family moved to an outpost established by a cousin in 1788 in what later became Lincoln County, Kentucky. In 1792 he married Annie (Amy) Moore, with whom he had four children. After her death he married Elizabeth Leek Coleman, in 1805, and had six children with her. From 1818 to 1821 McKinney managed the vast Tennessee estates of Senator George W. Campbell, who was serving as minister to Russia. While in Tennessee, McKinney operated a trading post, but he soon gave it up and returned to Kentucky, where he settled in Elkton, Todd County. Then he migrated with his family and many McKinney relatives to Hempstead County, Arkansas Territory, a few miles below Fulton. When this area became Lafayette County, Arkansas, in 1827, he was elected justice of the peace. In 1826 McKinney became a friend of Benjamin R. Milam , agent for introducing settlers into Arthur G. Wavell 's Red River colony in Northeast Texas, a possession of Mexico also claimed by the United States as Miller County, Arkansas . Impressed by the generous land grants offered to settlers in the Wavell colony and fully aware that it was in disputed territory, McKinney and most of his relatives had by 1830–31 signed contracts with Milam and located their new surveys. Until the beginning of the movement for Texas independence, the McKinney family, like other settlers, chafed under the authority of two opposed governments. They paid taxes, served on juries, and held county offices in Miller County, Arkansas, and in the same year petitioned the Mexican government at Nacogdoches for redress of grievances. McKinney was one of five delegates from Red River to the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He was one of five appointed to the committee to draft the Texas Declaration of Independence , and as the oldest member of the convention, at seventy, he was given the pen after the signing. He was also a member of the committee that produced the Constitution of the Republic of Texas , and later he was elected a delegate from Red River County to the First, Second, and Fourth congresses of the republic. In 1840 he joined other family members who earlier had moved to that part of Fannin County which became Grayson and Collin counties. Collin County and McKinney, the county seat, were named in his honor. He is credited with insisting that as new counties were delineated in North Texas, the boundaries should be straight. McKinney was associated with several frontier churches. First, he was a deacon in a Separate Baptist church near Crab Orchard, Kentucky, where his father moved in 1780. In 1817 McKinney united with Barton W. Stone's Christian movement, and although there is no mention of a church where he first lived in Texas, he frequently exhorted at religious meetings, and worship was conducted in his home. The church at Hickman's Prairie was organized in 1842 with McKinney and his son William C. as elders. McKinney was also a member of a church at Mantua, a congregation established by an immigrant preacher, J. B. Wilmeth, in 1846. Members of the Church of Christ consider McKinney a "Christian patriarch." During his lifetime he was a subject of six different governments: England, Virginia, the United States of America, the Republic of Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the Confederate States of America. He died on September 9, 1861, at his home in Collin County and was buried at Van Alstyne.

Tsha Handbook →

Things to Do in McKinney

quirky 10.8 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The Ewing family TV mansion from the Dallas soap opera sits on two hundred acres in Parker Texas and is open for tours every day. JRs bedroom is there. The…
historical 13.5 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The filming location of TV's Dallas. JR Ewing lived here.

Sports in McKinney

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Boys Basketball · 2022

Mckinney — 2022 UIL 6A Boys Basketball State Champions

Most recent: 2022 6A

McKinney High School, nestled in the heart of McKinney, Texas, has established a notable presence in Class 6A boys basketball. The Lions have proudly captured one UIL state championship, a significant achievement for any program in the highly competitive Texas high school sports landscape. This success reflects the dedication found within the school's athletic programs.

The 2022 6A state championship stands as a high point for McKinney High School boys basketball. The team's journey through the challenging Class 6A bracket culminated in this prestigious title, bringing honor to the school and community. The accomplishment is a source of pride for the McKinney area.

State titles
2022
Most recent
2022
Class
6A
The moment

The McKinney High School boys basketball team secured the 6A state championship in 2022.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near McKinney

340 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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