Buckner is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Collin County, located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. It is located within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and is inside the McKinney city limits.

History

Collin County's first county seat was Buckner. John McGarrah arrived from

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

in the early 1840s to claim a headright of , marking the beginning of settlement. In the middle of the 1840s, as the number of settlers increased, McGarrah established a trading station to accommodate them and gave of property for a townsite. A

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

shop was later constructed next to the store. The

Texas Legislature The Texas State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a p ...

created Collin County on April 3, 1846, and named a five-member commission to choose two locations within three miles of the county's center and oversee an election to designate one of the locations—to be called Buckner—as the county seat. A conference that was most likely conducted at McGarrah's store on

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

in 1846 was attended by roughly 75 people, who decided to designate that location as the county seat. The town got a post office in 1846. The state legislature asked for a fresh election in 1848 because Buckner was not within three miles of the county center and because two locations had not been presented to the voters in the 1846 election. McKinney was selected to be the new county seat. After mail service to Buckner was cut off in May 1848, the town's citizens and businesses relocated to McKinney a year later. Collin County's first county seat was abandoned by the early 1850s. However, due to the influence of a nearby

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

company and a "Third Monday Trade Day" at the site, activities in the Buckner region picked back up in the 1980s.

Geography

Buckner was located northwest of

McKinney McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas, United States. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano, Texas, Plano and Frisco, Texas, Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about ...

, but is now within the city limits.

Education

Today the community is served by the

McKinney Independent School District McKinney Independent School District (McKinney ISD) is a public independent school district in McKinney, Texas, United States. In addition to McKinney, the district serves the town of New Hope, Texas, New Hope and parts of Allen, Texas, Allen, ...

. It is zoned for Lizzie Nell Cundiff McClure Elementary School, Scott Morgan Johnson Middle School, and McKinney North High School.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Collin County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas