Since its origin as the Collin County Historical Society in 1957, the North Texas History Center has become a professionally managed, regional cultural institution. In May 1982, the Center opened a museum in the 1911 Post Office building in downtown McKinney, the Collin County seat. In May 2001, NTHC hired its first professional staff. Significant grants from the Meadows Foundation (2004) and the Institute of Museum & Library Services (2005 Museums for America Grant) coupled with increased support from the Collin County Commissioners’ Court and the City of McKinney enabled NTHC to improve its infrastructure and expand its staff to four full-time professionals and five part-timers. In 2005, the Commissioners’ Court chose NTHC to revitalize the Collin County Farm Museum. The Center’s McKinney location now hosts some 10,000+ elementary school students annually, and the Farm Museum location will host the first middle school students through a prototype exhibit in the spring of 2007. NTHC serves Collin, Dallas, Denton, Grayson, and Rockwall County ISDs with programs that dovetail with the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) requirements. The Center’s Curator of Collections & Exhibitions is diligently conducting the first object-by-object inventory of the Center’s collections, digitizing the artifacts and photographs, and properly storing those collections in museum-quality cabinets. NTHC’s growing national reputation is reflected by important object and document donations from Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas, and South Carolina sine 2006. While NTHC is grateful for its City and County funding support, it has a very aggressive development effort and a significant earned income effort. NTHC has membership and corporate partnership programs, exhibit and project sponsorships, and conducts two annual mailings. In addition to its school tour income, NTHC has published and/or reprinted five books since 2004. The NTHC endowment exceeds $110,000 and NTHC has established five designated endowment funds with the Communities Foundation of Texas: The History Center Fund, Farm Museum Fund, Harrington Library Fund, Hall Guild Maintenance Fund, and the McKinney Family Fund.
Your donations help: Your donations will be used for its education and collections care programs. NTHC serves some 10,000 North Texas school children annually.
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