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History · McNary

McNary’s post office opened in 1911

Most of McNary was built recently: 7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1980. Below: maps from 1949 on and the census since 1920.

1911first post office
0on the National Register
7%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How McNary began

When was McNary founded?

1911

The McNary post office opened in 1911, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Mc Nary (1911), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

First census: 1,318 in 19202020 census: 201115 years
Founding year: the first McNary post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about McNary’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of McNary are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start McNary’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how McNary’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How McNary came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of McNary.

Read it all →

By 1880 railroads were arriving and an industrial lumber boom began in Louisiana. Around 22 million acres were in virgin pine which was 85% of the state's land area. There were also large virgin Cyprus stands but these were mainly in swamp or coastal marsh lands. McNary began, as with many towns created along the railroads in Louisiana, as a lumber town. William M. Cady of Cady Lumber Company, along with Alfred Smith and James McNary, established a lumber mill in McNary. A town of around 3000 sprang up with all the amenities of larger towns including a theater, hospital, and swimming pool. During the first part of the 1920s mills starting cutting out. By 1923 the McNary reserves were depleted but what followed next was not atypical of most mills. The Cady Lumber Company purchased the Apache Lumber Company, Ponderosa Pine leases, the Apache Railway, and the sawmill in Cooley, Arizona, th…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

McNary, 1911 to 1949

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1911Post officeThe Mc Nary post office opens
  3. 1924Post officeThe Mc Nary post office closes
  4. 1949On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

McNary, decade by decade

Today1 recent
LAMap-doton-McNary2004LAMap-doton-McNary
On the map

McNary on the map, 1949 to 2003

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of McNary. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

McNary on the 1949 USGS mapMcNary on the 1968 USGS mapMcNary on the 2003 USGS map1949Glenmora sheet · 1:31,680

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of McNary.

People over time

McNary, census by census

02004006008001,0001,2001,400192019401960198020002020Peak: 1,318

Between 151 and 1,318 people in every census since 1920.

9 censuses, 1920–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on McNary’s Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Another post office, Mc Nary, opened and closed inside today’s town.

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Glenmora1 historic placeC+

Questions about McNary’s history

What year was McNary founded?

The McNary post office opened in 1911, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.