Texas School Book Depository | |
---|---|
Former names | Southern Rock Island Plow Company Texas School Book Depository |
Alternative names | Dallas County Administration Building The Sixth Floor Museum |
General information | |
Architectural style | Romanesque Revival |
Address | 411 Elm St. Dallas, Texas |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 32°46′47″N96°48′30″W / 32.77972°N 96.80833°W |
Elevation | 455 feet (139 m) |
Construction started | 1901 |
Renovated | 1981 |
Cost | $3,040,510 |
Owner | Dallas County |
Technical details | |
Structural system | B-Reinforced Concrete Frame Piers |
Floor count | 8 |
Floor area | 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) [1] |
Design and construction | |
Main contractor | Rock Island Plow Company |
Website | |
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza | |
Texas School Book Depository | |
Dallas Landmark Historic District Contributing Property | |
Part of | |
RTHL No. | 6895 |
DLMKHD No. | H/2 (West End HD) |
Significant dates | |
Designated CP | November 14, 1978 |
Designated NHLDCP | October 12, 1993 |
Designated RTHL | 1981 |
Designated DLMKHD | October 6, 1975 [3] |
The Texas School Book Depository, now known as the Dallas County Administration Building, is a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The building was Lee Harvey Oswald's vantage point during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald, an employee at the depository, shot and mortally wounded President Kennedy from a sixth floor window on the building's southeastern corner. Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
The building, located at 411 Elm Street on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets in downtown Dallas, is a Texas Historic Landmark.
The site was originally owned by John Neely Bryan. [1] In the 1880s, Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop on the property. In 1894, the Rock Island Plow Company bought the land, and four years later constructed a five-story building for its Texas division, the Southern Rock Island Plow Company. [1] In 1901, the building was hit by lightning and nearly burned to the ground. It was rebuilt in 1902 in the Commercial Romanesque Revival style and expanded to seven stories. In 1937, the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property, but they defaulted on the loan. It was sold at public auction in July 1939 and purchased by D. Harold Byrd. [1] [4]
Under Byrd's ownership, the building remained empty until 1940, when it was leased by grocery wholesaler John Sexton & Co. Sexton Foods used this location as the branch office for sales, manufacturing, and distribution for the south and southwest United States. In November 1961, Sexton Foods moved to a modern distribution facility located at 650 Regal Row Dallas. By then, the building was known locally as the Sexton Building. The building was refurbished, and partitions, carpeting, air conditioning, and a new passenger elevator were added on the first four floors. [4]
In 1963, the building was in use as a multi-floor warehouse storing school textbooks and other related materials, and an order-fulfillment center by the privately owned Texas School Book Depository Company, which had moved from the first floor of the adjacent Dal-Tex Building. [5] The company found that the upper floors had sustained oil damage from items stored there by the previous tenant, so they began to cover the floors with plywood to protect their books, stored in cardboard boxes, from the oil. [4]
Work had begun on the west side of the sixth floor just before President Kennedy's motorcade, "leaving the whole scene in disarray, with stock shifted as far as the east wall, and stacks in between piled unusually high." [4] Lee Harvey Oswald was working as a temporary employee at the building. He fired three shots from a sixth floor window at the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963. At this time, the building had three elevators. [6]
The Texas School Book Depository Company maintained a second warehouse at 1917 Houston, several blocks north of the main building. The short four-story structure was well removed from the parade route, half-hidden on an unpaved section of Houston. Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly told the Warren Commission that he had the option to assign Oswald to either building on his first day at work. "Oswald and another fellow reported for work on the same day [October 15] and I needed one of them for the depository building. I picked Oswald." [7] This second building was eventually destroyed to make way for the Woodall Rodgers Freeway. [7]
The mayor of Dallas, Wes Wise, saved the Texas School Book Depository from imminent destruction, preserving it for further research into the president's murder. [8]
The Texas School Book Depository Company moved out in 1970. The building was sold at auction to Aubrey Mayhew, a Nashville, Tennessee music producer and collector of Kennedy memorabilia, by the owner D. H. Byrd. In 1972, ownership reverted to Byrd. In 1977, the building was purchased by the government of Dallas County. After renovating the lower five floors of the building for use as county government offices, the Dallas County Administration Building was dedicated in March 1981. [9]
On President's Day 1989, the sixth floor opened to the public, for an admission charge, as the Sixth Floor Museum of assassination-related exhibits. On President's Day 2002, the seventh-floor gallery opened. [10] [11] The gallery opened in February 2002 with the exhibit: "The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment". [12] A $2.5 million renovation turned the storage area on the seventh floor into a new gallery space for the museum. Other exhibits that have hung in the space include works of Andy Warhol. [13] [14]
In May 2010, burglars attempted to steal a safe from the Sixth Floor Museum, but fled when "they were confronted by a security guard," leaving the unopened safe suspended from a winch on the back of a truck. [15]
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.
Dealey Plaza is a city park in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas. It is sometimes called the "birthplace of Dallas". It was also the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Thirty minutes after the shooting, Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital. The Dealey Plaza Historic District was named a National Historic Landmark on the 30th anniversary of the assassination, to preserve Dealey Plaza, street rights-of-way, and buildings and structures by the plaza visible from the assassination site, that have been identified as witness locations or as possible locations for the assassin.
Abraham Zapruder was a Ukrainian-born American clothing manufacturer who witnessed the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. He unexpectedly captured the shooting in a home movie while filming the presidential limousine and motorcade as it traveled through Dealey Plaza. The Zapruder film is regarded as the most complete footage of the assassination.
The Babushka Lady is an unidentified woman present during the 1963 assassination of US President John F. Kennedy who might have photographed or filmed the events that occurred in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza at the time President John F. Kennedy was shot. Her nickname arose from the US Army headscarf she wore, which was similar to scarves worn by elderly Russian women. бабушка – babushka – literally means "grandmother" or "old woman" in Russian.
James Thomas Tague was a car salesman who received minor injuries during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Tague received a minor wound to his right cheek caused by tiny pieces of concrete debris from a street curb that was struck by fragments from a bullet that was fired at Kennedy. Besides Kennedy and Texas Governor John B. Connally, Tague was the only other person known to have been struck as a result of gunfire at Dallas's Dealey Plaza that day.
This article outlines the timeline of events before, during, and after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States.
The Badge Man is a figure that is purportedly present within the Mary Moorman photograph of the assassination of United States president John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that this figure is a sniper firing a weapon at the president from the grassy knoll. Although a reputed muzzle flash obscures much of the detail, the Badge Man has been described as a person wearing a police uniform—the moniker itself derives from a bright spot on the chest, which is said to resemble a gleaming badge.
The West End Historic District of Dallas, Texas, is a historic district that includes a 67.5-acre (27.3 ha) area in northwest downtown, generally north of Commerce, east of I-35E, west of Lamar and south of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway. It is south of Victory Park, west of the Arts, City Center, and Main Street districts, and north of the Government and Reunion districts. A portion of the district is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as Westend Historic District. A smaller area is also a Dallas Landmark District. The far western part of the district belongs to the Dealey Plaza Historic District, a National Historic Landmark around structures and memorials associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is a museum located on the sixth floor of the Dallas County Administration Building, formerly the Texas School Book Depository, in downtown Dallas, Texas, overlooking Dealey Plaza at the intersection of Elm and Houston Streets. The museum examines the life, times, death, and legacy of United States President John F. Kennedy, and the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as the various conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination.
The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial is a monument to United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA) erected in 1970, and designed by noted architect Philip Johnson.
The Dal-Tex Building is a seven-story office building located at 501 Elm Street in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The building is located on the northeast corner of Elm and North Houston streets, across the street from the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, the scene of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The Dal-Tex Building, sometimes called the Dallas-Textiles Building, the Dal-Tex Market Building, or the Dal-Tex Mart Building, was a center of the textile business in Dallas.
James William "Ike" Altgens was an American photojournalist, photo editor, and field reporter for the Associated Press (AP) based in Dallas, Texas, who became known for his photographic work during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy (JFK). Altgens was 19 when he began his AP career, which was interrupted by military service during World War II. When his service time ended, Altgens returned to Dallas and got married. He soon went back to work for the local AP bureau and eventually earned a position as a senior editor.
Orville Orhel Nix was a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. His filming of the shooting, which only captured the last few seconds of it, but shows the grassy knoll in its entirety, is considered to be nearly as important as the film by Abraham Zapruder.
Marie M. Muchmore was one of the witnesses to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A color 8 mm film that Muchmore made is one of the primary documents of the assassination. The Muchmore film, with other 8 mm films taken by Abraham Zapruder and Orville Nix, was used by the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination and to position the presidential limousine in a forensic recreation of the event in May 1964.
Howard Leslie Brennan was an American memoirist and steamfitter who was witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. According to the Warren Commission, Brennan's description of a sniper he saw was probative in reaching the conclusion that the shots came from the sixth floor, southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository Building.
Marilyn Sitzman was an American receptionist and a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. She was steadying her boss, Abraham Zapruder, as he stood atop a pergola in Dealey Plaza making what has since become to be known as the Zapruder film, the most studied record of the assassination.
Robert "Bob" Jackson is an American photographer. In 1964, Jackson, then working for the Dallas Times Herald, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his image capturing the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby.
The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Unexpectedly, it captured the President's assassination.
Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy is a 1994 book by Richard B. Trask, an American historian and archivist based in Danvers, Massachusetts. The book compiles more than 350 photographs made by amateur and professional photographers in Dallas, Texas, during the November 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, and includes interviews with many of the people who made the images, some of which had never been published prior to the book's release.
The Ruth Paine Home at 2515 W. 5th Street in Irving, Texas, United States, is the location where Lee Harvey Oswald spent the night before he assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, at Dealey Plaza. It was from the house's garage that he removed the rifle he used for the assassination, which he had previously concealed there.