WALNUT GROVE, TEXAS (Collin County). Walnut Grove is a small community located off Farm Road 2478 about eight miles northwest of McKinney in western Collin County. In 1844 members of the Searcy family migrated to the area from Kentucky, and during the next few years other pioneers from Kentucky and Missouri settled in the region. A Presbyterian church was soon established, and probably by the 1850s a cemetery served the settlement. The earliest marked graves in Walnut Grove Cemetery date to 1863. By the early 1900s the community along Wilson Creek had a school. Through much of the twentieth century Walnut Grove remained a rural farming community. The Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church was designated as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1976. From 1980 through 2000 its population was stable at 200.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Collin County Book Co. Cemeteries website (http://www.collincountybooks.com/cccemeteries.htm), accessed November 11, 2004. Marker files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin (Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church). J. Lee Stambaugh and Lillian J. Stambaugh, A History of Collin County (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1958).

Laurie E. Jasinski