In 1982, a tornado destroyed the McKinley school building at 904 N Court St. Students were housed in the Washington School on East Main St. and the McKinley building was eventually replaced by combining the students with students from the Lincoln School in the new Lincoln School on Morningside Dr. The original building was built in 1915.

(This information was obtained from A. C. (Cliff) Storme, Louis Fluck, and newspaper articles published by Violet Grisham and from the personal knowledge of Thomas Wimberly, in January, 2006)