Repositories of history, legends and significant events are the ways museums can be characterized. Here you can see prehistoric creatures and listen to legends and stories that created the future. You can see the life of our ancestors and the weapons that they used to protect themselves and attack. You can literally see the past in the museum. But there are those dedicated to a particular event or person. One of them is the Sixth Floor Museum, which will tell the story of the most famous murder of the 20th century. Find out more at dallas-future.
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
The building at the corner of Houston and Elm streets in Dallas does not stand out from the other buildings if you don’t know the history that happened on November 22nd, 1963. The six-story red brick building was built in 1901. There was a Depository on the premises, a private company called the Texas School Book Depository. The organization compiled and distributed school textbooks for public schools in northern Texas and parts of Oklahoma. This building is located downtown.
AN EVENT THAT CHANGED THE FATE
The 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, came for a visit to Dallas. The president’s trip was one of the stages of the election campaign for the 1965 presidential election. The route that the president was supposed to travel was developed by the Secret Service. John F. Kennedy’s motorcade was supposed to arrive at the Dallas Exposition Center, where a banquet was scheduled.
An attempt was made on the motorcade of the US president while driving past the school book depository. Witnesses heard three shots. One of the bullets hit the president directly in the head. Half an hour later, the 35-year-old US president died in the hospital.
The shot was fired from the sixth floor of the Depository building. On the spot, the security services arrested the suspect, Harvey Lee Oswald, who had just come to work here a few weeks earlier.
THE MUSEUM
The school book depository building became a center of despair, shock and outrage after this terrible crime. In 1970, the Texas School Book Depository company left that building. Many Dallas residents assumed the building would be demolished. After the restoration and repair, the four lower floors were opened and housed the Dallas County administration. The fifth and sixth floors remained empty.
The Sixth Floor Museum was opened on President’s Day 1989 through the assistance of the Dallas County Historical Foundation. It was created in response to numerous public requests about the details of the assassination attempt and the investigation results.
THE EXHIBITS
The museum floors have been restored to what they looked like at the time of the attack. The historical exhibition includes the life story of the 35th president, the famous and unclassified details of his assassination attempt and the scale of impact this event had on American society.
Among the museum exhibits, you can find films, artifacts, books, documents and reports of detective investigations.
The Museum has a webcam in the window that allows users to watch online from where Harvey Oswald was shooting. Here is the link to the camera.
The museum is financed by donations and sold tickets.
The museum is conditionally divided into parts:
- The early ’60s
- The trip to Texas
- The corner window
- The crisis hours
- The investigations
- The corner stairs
- The memory book.
In 2002, a 5,500-square-foot space for exhibitions and public programs was opened on the seventh floor.
In 2010, a reading room was opened where you can get acquainted with all available materials about the assassination and legacy of John F. Kennedy.
The museum works and develops. Practically every year, new documents and investigations into the crime of the century, which entire America remembers as the death of an era, are discovered.
