In 1975, Brandon University in cooperation with the Manitoba Pool Elevators, founded the Brandon University Rural Resources Archives. The Rural Resources Archives was designed to provide rural Manitoba with resource materials for use in the discussion and analysis of problems related to rural social development. It was given a mandate to collect publications and archival materials related to the history of the Manitoba Pool Elevators, cooperative societies, churches, exhibitions, school districts, and Women’s Institutes.

In September 1978, the University transformed Brandon University Rural Resources Archives into the Brandon University Archives. Originally housed in a trailer, from October 1981 to September 1998 the University Archives operated out of the Archives Centre located in the basement of the Jeff Umphrey Building at 20th and Victoria Avenue.

In 1990 the University Board of Governor’s renamed the Brandon University Archives the S. J. McKee Archives. The S. J. McKee Archives was so established on Saturday, November 19, 1990, to mark the anniversary of the opening of the Brandon Academy by S. J. McKee and his wife Laura McKee one hundred years earlier on November 19, 1890. In 1899, the Brandon Academy founded by Samuel and Laura McKee became Brandon College.

The S. J. McKee Archives moved to its current location on the mezzanine floor of the John E. Robbins Library in the summer of 1998.