Texas School Book Depository Building, Formerly The
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This site was originally owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas. During the 1880s French native Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop here. In 1894 the land was purchased by Phil L. Mitchell, president and director of the Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois. An office building for the firm's Texas division, known as the Southern Rock Island Plow Company, was completed here four years later. In 1901 the five-story structure was destroyed by fire. That same year, under supervision of the company vice president and general manager F. B. Jones, work was completed on this structure. Built to resemble the earlier edifice, it features characteristics of the commercial Romanesque Revival style. In 1937 the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property. Later, under the direction of D. H. Byrd, the building was leased to a variety of businesses, including the Texas School Book Depository. On November 22, 1963, the building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Standing on land first owned by Dallas founder John Neely Bryan, this five-story Romanesque Revival building was completed in 1901 for the Southern Rock Island Plow Company after fire destroyed its predecessor. Decades of ordinary commercial tenancy followed — until November 22, 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired from a sixth-floor window as President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed below, and the building entered history forever.
Why it matters
Few American addresses are so bound to a single, nation-altering moment; the assassination of JFK here marks a hinge point in the country's postwar political and cultural life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Neely Bryan
- · Lee Harvey Oswald
- · John F. Kennedy
Related events
- · Assassination of President Kennedy
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dallas County Criminal Courts Building
Dallas, TX
Completed in 1915 to the Renaissance Revival design of local architect H. A. Overbeck, this steel-framed Dallas building combined a courthouse with a jail for 200 prisoners in its upper floors. Its second-floor courtrooms once suspended summer trials until air conditioning arrived in 1951. In 1964 the east courtroom became the stage for the trial of Jack Ruby, convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating President Kennedy.
Dallas County Records Building
Dallas, TX
Designed by the prominent Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell, this Gothic Revival building rose in 1927-28 to hold the growing county's records, offices, and courtrooms. First called the Hall of Records, it took its present name when the facilities were enlarged in the 1950s. Its cut-limestone walls and cast-stone Gothic detailing still serve Dallas County government today.
Alexander Cockrell_Sarah Horton Cockrell
Dallas, TX
Alexander Cockrell arrived in the Dallas area in 1845, fought in the war with Mexico, and by 1852 had bought the remainder of the townsite from Dallas's founder, John Neely Bryan, building brickyards, a sawmill, and a Trinity River bridge. When he was killed over a debt in 1858, his wife Sarah Horton Cockrell took the reins, finishing the St. Nicholas Hotel, running the ferry, and adding a flour mill — becoming the first woman in Dallas to wield real economic power.
Higginbotham-Pearlstone Building
Dallas, TX
Rising four stories in Dallas's west end in 1909, this brick warehouse moved through a chain of tenants before becoming home to the Higginbotham-Pearlstone Wholesale Hardware Company in 1926. For half a century it supplied hardware across the region, its corbelled cornices marking the industrial energy of the growing city. It still stands as a focal point of the historic district it once helped define.