History

James Francis Stinson (seated, second from left) was born in Akron, Ohio.  He was orphaned when young, migrated to Missouri, then to Collin County when a young man.  He came by wagon train with a family by the name of Roundtree and settled south of McKinney where he went to work for Benjamin F. Biggs.  In 1876 he married Margaret Catherine Biggs (seated, third from left), the oldest daughter of his employer.  They started housekeeping on a small acreage he bought on what is now Parker Road.  Mr. and Mrs. Stinson added to their small farm from time to time until they owned around a thousand acres of land in various places.  The earliest school in the area in that day was a one-room school located southwest of Parker, and also a one room school at St. Paul, which is east of Parker.  When the need arose for another school, Mr. and Mrs. Stinson donated the land and another one-room school was built on the west side of the Stinson farm.  It was called “Stinson School”.  It was also referred to as a “Who’d a Thought It.”   That was the exclamation from a man who passed by while the school was being built and the name stuck.  It was the school that all the Stinson children and other nearby children attended in that early day.  Mr. and Mrs. Stinson were the parents of ten children (seven pictured here).

It is in the spirit of the Stinson family’s generosity and dedication to education that Stinson Elementary exists - to serve the needs of all students in the surrounding neighborhoods.  We welcome each family that enters.