Post Office (former) Mural – McKinney TX

Description

Artist Frank Klepper painted this mural “Confederate Company Leaving McKinney” for the McKinney post office in 1934, with funding from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts:

“The triptych mural depicts a scene in 1864 that was witnessed by the artist’s grandmother on the McKinney Courthouse Square – a block from the museum. Klepper painted his grandmother into the foreground of the main panel.

In the mural the mounted men were volunteers for a Confederate spy unit – a group formed by orders from Brigadier General Ben McCulloch. As the men leave – a casket containing the remains of the same General McCulloch is being transported to Austin from Little Rock.

McCulloch had been killed in action at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in 1862 and his remains exhumed and sent to the State Cemetery in Austin.

It is one of the few post office murals based on a particular event.”   (https://www.texasescapes.com)

The post office housing the mural was built in 1911. The mural was temporarily removed to the new post office in 1960, but has since been returned to the original building, which now houses the North Texas History Center.