The Old Collin County Courthouse anchors McKinney's historic downtown square, a buff-brick and limestone block four storeys high with a central clock cupola. Built in 1926 to replace an earlier courthouse lost to fire, it is the third on this site and the building most McKinney residents picture when they think of their town.
Today the interior is the McKinney Performing Arts Center, with a 450-seat theatre carved out of the former courtroom. The exterior is best seen from the surrounding square, particularly at dusk when the cupola lighting comes on. The shops and restaurants ringing the square are housed in two- and three-storey Victorian buildings from the 1880s and 1890s, most still with their original facades.