[2] The borough is within the Sto-Rox School District, which serves McKees Rocks and neighboring Stowe Township.

McKees Rocks had one of the largest Indian mounds in the state, built by the Adena and Hopewell peoples a thousand years before Europeans entered the area.

McKees Rocks is also known as the birthplace of former Ohio Governor John Kasich and late television salesperson Billy Mays.

The bluff under the mound was quarried for municipal paving some time after the archaeological dig, eliminating what remained of the Indian burial site.

[4] Around 1749, the French-Canadian explorer Pierre Joseph Celoron de Blainville visited the area and discovered a "written rock" inscribed with markings he believed were made by Native Americans.

Writing in 1918, historian John Boucher stated that the inscriptions had "long since faded away, if indeed they were anything other than marks made by English fur traders.

In 1769, the name McKees Rocks was placed on an official deed,[6] and that year is considered to be its founding date.

Mann's Hotel, which was possibly one of the oldest buildings in the Pittsburgh area,[8][9] was located at 23 Singer Avenue in McKees Rocks.

When the county wanted to build a new Windgap Bridge beside the old one, it needed the space occupied by Mann's Hotel.

[11] In 1896, archeologists of the Carnegie Museum, established the year prior, partially excavated the McKees Rocks mound, unearthing over 30 graves.

[13][14] Industrial development, including a quarry and a cement plant have reduced the remainder and there is no public access today.

[19] The strike, led by organizers of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), was repressed by armed security guards and the state militia, resulting in at least a dozen deaths.

[20] In 1940, three decapitated bodies were found in boxcars in McKees Rocks during a routine train inspection.

In fact, throughout the 1920s, various dismembered and decapitated bodies were recovered in or around the nearby swamp areas of New Castle and McKees Rocks.

[22][23] The multimillion-dollar, 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) Father Ryan Cultural Arts Center opened in 2008, at 420 Chartiers Avenue, adjacent to the F.O.R.

Chartiers Creek separates McKees Rocks from two Pittsburgh neighborhoods and have connectors to both: Across the Ohio River, McKees Rocks runs adjacent to two other Pittsburgh neighborhoods: As of the 2000 census,[26] there were 6,622 people, 2,905 households, and 1,652 families residing in the borough.