Mission:
The Stark County Historical Society is dedicated to collecting and preserving the significant materials and records related to the history of Stark County and the presidential history of William McKinley. Through the Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, the Society serves as an educational center of history and science and offers interpretive exhibitions and educational programs for the local community and its expanding global audience.
Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum is a private nonprofit organization under the umbrella of the Stark County Historical Society. The museum, memorial and its grounds are privately funded and maintained by endowment, admissions, memberships and private donations. Its mission is to preserve and interpret the history of Stark County, including that of its favorite citizen, 25th President of the United States, William McKinley.
Canton, Ohio, is proud to have been home to one of eight Ohio presidents from 1867 to 1923. (The other seven are; William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding) Born in Niles, Ohio, It was from his Canton home that William McKinley built his career as lawyer, prosecuting attorney, congressman, governor and president. William McKinley and his wife, Ida Saxton McKinley of Canton, spent many years of their married lives living in the Saxton family home which now serves as the home of the National First Ladies Library, located at 331 Market Avenue South. They later owned a home at 723 Market Avenue North, which is no longer in existence. It was to the Market Avenue North home that the McKinley's were planning to return after the second presidential term when assassin Leon Czolgosz took the president's life in Buffalo, New York. The McKinley National Memorial is a classic and beautiful memorial to the president and his family, who are entombed here.
