About the Stark County Historical Society
The McKinley Presidential Library & Museum
The Stark County Historical Society was formed in 1946 and today does business as the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, located at 800 McKinley Monument Drive NW in Canton. The society is dedicated to collecting and preserving the significant materials and records related to the history of Stark County and to the presidential legacy of William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, who built his political career in Canton. The museum sits at the foot of the McKinley National Memorial, which the society also owns and cares for — the monument is the final resting place of President McKinley, First Lady Ida McKinley, and their two young daughters.
The museum's holdings include the largest collection of McKinley memorabilia in the world, displayed in the McKinley Gallery. Beyond the presidential collections, visitors can walk the Street of Shops, a life-sized indoor recreation of a 19th-century town; explore the Stark County Story, a permanent exhibition tracing 200 years of local history; and visit Discover World, an interactive science center. The Hoover-Price Planetarium, which opened in July 1963, presents astronomy programs in a 65-seat theater, while the Ramsayer Research Library in the building's South Wing serves as the presidential archive and a resource for historians and genealogists researching Stark County.
The McKinley Presidential Library & Museum receives no government funding for daily operations, yet it annually hosts approximately 200,000 visitors to its grounds and about 50,000 guests inside the museum, including roughly 10,000 children each year on school field trips. That combination of presidential history, local heritage, and hands-on science makes it one of the most heavily visited historical society operations in Ohio.
Plan Your Visit
The McKinley Presidential Library & Museum is located at 800 McKinley Monument Drive NW in Canton, Ohio, at the base of the McKinley National Memorial. Exhibits range from the McKinley Gallery and Street of Shops to the Hoover-Price Planetarium and Discover World science center. For current hours, admission prices, planetarium schedules, and research library appointments, visit mckinleymuseum.org.
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