McDonald’s plans to tear down its Store No. 1 Museum next month.
The museum, which opened in 1985—a year after the original store was torn down in 1984—was a replica of Ray Kroc’s first store that opened in 1955 in Des Plaines, Il.
Though the museum was popular with tourists, it had flooding problems starting in 2008. The land will be given back to Des Plaines.
Kroc, considered the founder of the McDonald’s fast food chain, was a milkshake machine salesman. He visited a hamburger shop in San Bernardino, Calif. in 1954 run by Richard and Maurice McDonald. Kroc franchised the restaurant, opening his first McDonald’s store in Des Plaines; in 1961 he purchased the McDonald’s name from the brothers, and what we know as McDonald’s was born.
In San Bernardino, there is an unofficial home for McDonald’s memorabilia. In 1998 a man named Albert Okura purchased the site where the McDonald brothers had their restaurant and filled it with memorabilia. According to a 2013 report from by Sacramento Bee he “worked out an agreement with the corporation so that his shrine to McDonald’s early days doesn’t violate any trademarks.”
