Collin McKinney book, Celina Record

Book works to highlight historical contributions of Collin McKinney Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Apr 7, 2016 Prior to last fall, only one book about Collin McKinney, the namesake of Collin County and the city of McKinney, had been published. It was an illustrated children’s book – not exactly the sort fact-filled tome most Texas history buffs would likely seek out while researching the life and times of the statesman, whose 250th birthday will be marked April 16 with a county-sponsored celebration in downtown McKinney. Were it not for the county’s decision to note the milestone in grand fashion, there might not have been a second book about McKinney written anytime soon. “Texas Maker: The Heretofore Unknown Legend of Collin McKinney” was penned and self-published in September by Collin County Public Information Officer Eric Nishimoto. It is available for purchase on Amazon.com. Nishimoto will sign and sell copies of the book Saturday at the Celina Museum, 211 W. Pecan St., as part of the activities scheduled on the city’s downtown square for Celina Cajun Fest. “There are a lot of people who don’t even know who Collin McKinney is,” said Nishimoto, who has lived in Prosper for more than a decade. “I’ve talked to people who were born and raised in this area who didn’t know who he was or didn’t make the connection that some guy back in the old days named Collin McKinney, that’s who the county and the county seat was named after.” A nonprofit steering committee was formed three years ago to plan events and activities throughout the county this year in honor of McKinney’s sestercentennial. A list of scheduled events is available at collinmckinney250.org. Nishimoto said it was quickly decided “that we would spend this year educating people on who he was.” According to The Handbook of Texas Online, produced by the Texas State Historical Association in Austin, McKinney was a land surveyor, merchant, politician and lay preacher who at age 70 served as a delegate at the Convention of 1836. He and four others were appointed to a committee to draft the Texas Declaration of Independence. McKinney also served on the committee that produced the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. The responsibility for writing a book detailing McKinney’s remarkable life fell on Nishimoto, a former newspaper and magazine writer. He is also an adjunct professor with University of North Texas’ Mayborn School of Journalism. “Texas Maker” is his first book, which he penned on his own time and separately from his job with the county. “It was a great project, actually,” he said, explaining that a pair of historians on the steering committee thoroughly researched McKinney’s biography. “They came up with things about Collin McKinney that none of us knew about.” That included the fact that he was “uncomfortable” with both the county and its seat having been named after him. In fact, Nishimoto said, McKinney at one point petitioned the state to rename the city of McKinney to Elizabethtown in honor of his wife, Elizabeth Leek Coleman. “He thought his wife certainly deserved it as much as he did. Just knowing his story, his wife put up with an awful lot. She was a tough woman,” he said. McKinney was also an outdoorsman, an outfitter, a guide and an Indian fighter. He rode on horseback to bring groups of settlers from Tennessee and Kentucky into the area until he was 80 years old. “He basically was like Davy Crockett, who happened to be one of his good friends,” Nishimoto said. “He had the same physical stature; he was a big man. And that’s the stuff nobody knows.” In preparing to write the book, Nishimoto said he had “this wealth of information that was readily accessible that I could just sit down and read and create a story about it.” And create he did. “The one thing they were not good about back in the day was recording what people said,” he said, explaining why he had to devise all of the conversations featured in the 100-page novella. For example, at the Convention of 1836, “They had scribes there recording what was going on, but they didn’t record what anybody said. They would write down, `Collin McKinney gave a fiery speech,’ but they didn’t say what he said, so I had to make that stuff up.” It is why “Texas Maker” is classified as historical fiction rather than nonfiction. “I was very careful … to make sure I wasn’t stepping way out of line on things,” Nishimoto said, adding that he consulted with the steering committee’s historians as he wrote. “The point of the book was to get across the fact that this was a remarkable man. He was an incredibly humble man. He had deep faith. He was extraordinarily strong and resilient.” McKinney’s humility, he speculated, may be why he never garnered the same lofty place in Texas history as Crockett, Sam Houston and William B. Travis. “Not to say that the others didn’t deserve their reputations, because they did,” he said, but “Crockett was a big self-promoter.” McKinney, who died in 1861 at age 95, was not. “I think that’s one of the reasons he just kind of faded away from public view. But he did a lot when he was around, and he was beloved by people.” Deborah Kilgore is curator of the Collin County Historical Society and Museum, at 300 E. Virginia St. in McKinney. She said because McKinney, a three-time congressman for the Republic of Texas, was on the committee that drafted the state’s Declaration of Independence and its Constitution, he can likely be compared to Benjamin Franklin in relation to U.S. history. While leading tours of visitors at the museum, Kilgore said she often explains that although Thomas Jefferson penned the nation’s Declaration of Independence, it was Franklin who made most of the important changes to the document. McKinney probably made “critical changes” to Texas’ declaration, she said, “but unfortunately we don’t know what those changes were. It’s all speculation.” Nishimoto said he has been told by some who have read “Texas Maker” that they find McKinney’s story inspiring. “There’s something to be said about a guy who never quit, who worked hard for his state and his country up until he died,” he said. “He was a man of vision. He saw where Texas could go and he did everything he could to help it get there.” Follow the Celina Record on Twitter @celinarecord.