Lee Harvey Oswald, the man arrested for assassinating John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, traced a path through Dallas before he was caught for the crime while hiding out in a historic Oak Cliff movie theater.
In the 60 years since, many Dallas residents who remember or were there to witness the tragedy are long gone.
But three buildings that were essential to the story of the assassination have been preserved as historical sites by people dedicated to honoring these pieces of one of the most pivotal moments in American history.
The sixth floor
The Dallas County Administration Building on the corner of North Houston Street and Elm Street was once leased out by the Texas School Book Depository, which hired Oswald — a discharged Marine — in October 1963.
The seven-story orange brick building is where Oswald is said to have fatally shot Kennedy from the sixth floor as the president’s motorcade rounded onto Elm.
Darwin Payne rushed to the depository minutes after his newsroom at the Dallas Times-Herald learned Kennedy had been shot.
“There were police officers there with rifles, shotguns — I'd never seen a police officer with a shotgun before — and pistols, of course, looking everywhere,” Payne said. “And I tried to talk to a number of people who were — many of them — in tears still.”
Payne, then a 26-year-old general assignments reporter and a fan of Kennedy, was managing his own shock and grief, too.
Still, he focused on the task at hand: get as much information from witnesses and law enforcement officials as possible.
He went next door to the former Dal-Tex Building where he met Abraham Zapruder, creator of the infamous Zapruder film, also in tears.
Payne said he then managed to get access to the sixth floor of the depository with officers and other reporters, where authorities found Oswald’s perch at the window and later his rifle.
Since that time, the theory of a “second gunman” has taken the imagination of some more conspiracy-minded members of the public. But to Payne and others, the reality from that perch seemed clear.
“We looked out the window and compared notes as to whether or not we thought it was an easy shot or a very difficult shot,” said Payne, who had six months of active-duty training. “And it didn't seem to be too difficult to me or to somebody else who had just finished an Army stint.”
The depository is now home to the Sixth Floor Museum, which opened in 1989, years after the school book company left and Dallas County restored the building. On display are exhibits and installations dedicated to education and keeping the history of the assassination and Kennedy’s legacy alive.
Kim Bryan, chief philanthropy officer for the museum, said visitors are often taken by the power of the experience.
“Whether you remember it or not, people come here and it is a sort of profoundly emotional experience,” Bryan said. “We stand where history happened. And we talk a lot about the importance of place — this museum can only really exist here. We have to be here in this space where history happened, where the country, the world was really deeply impacted.”
1026 North Beckley Ave.
Following the shooting, Oswald went back to his rooming house on North Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff, where he allegedly grabbed a pistol before leaving on foot. Payne said lodgers at the rooming house described Oswald as an aloof loner whom they often heard talking on the phone in a foreign language.
Patricia Puckett-Hall, who was 11 when Kennedy was assassinated, said she and her younger brothers spent their childhood at the Oak Cliff house, owned by their grandmother Gladys Johnson.
Puckett-Hall remembers Oswald differently than perhaps most of the country — she said he was a sweet, kind and gentle man who played with the boys and always tried to help her with her homework.
“I absolutely believe this sweet young man did not kill the president,” she said.
Puckett-Hall, now 71, owns and operates the Oswald Rooming House Museum. The home appears small on the outside but had enough rooms for 18 people her grandmother housed, Puckett-Hall said.
She also said she believes the fringe theory that Oswald was a CIA operative and that the agency set him up and used him — though the House Select Committee on Assassinations denied the CIA's involvement in the assassination in a 1979 report and the Warren Commission concluded unequivocally that Oswald was the shooter.
But Puckett-Hall said she also accepts that she could be wrong. The purpose of the museum, Puckett-Hall said, is to search for the truth about the assassination and share her knowledge with others. Running the museum is also her full-time job.
“I'm very much a people person,” she said. “I love learning about people and I love giving people information that they want. And so, this is the perfect job for me.”
Puckett-Hall charges only $30 for a two-hour experience at the house, which she said she set as a reasonable price for the average visitor. But the house was built in 1935, according to the Dallas County Appraisal District, and Puckett-Hall said maintaining the old property by herself gets expensive.
Aside from a spot in the National Register of Historic Places, Puckett-Hall said she doesn’t get any outside help from historic organizations. She estimates total restoration of the house costs $100,000. Her current issue is trying to fix the brick that’s pulling away from the house’s frame.
Despite these challenges, Puckett-Hall said she’s reluctant to hand the home over to anyone else.
“If I found somebody that would like to buy the house, preserve the history and maybe make the whole thing into a museum, I'm willing to talk to them,” Puckett-Hall said. “But I have to have certain guarantees in the contract that they will not kill the history of this house. It's too important.”
Lee Harvey Oswald and the Texas Theatre
Police had already broadcast a description of the shooter in Kennedy’s assassination over the radio when Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit was called to central Oak Cliff.
Tippit saw Oswald, who he thought matched that description, while driving near the corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue. After the two spoke, Tippit got out of his car, and Oswald allegedly shot and killed him.
Then Oswald went to the Texas Theatre, sneaking in during a showing of the 1961 film, “War is Hell.” Hardy’s Show Store manager Johnny Brewer reportedly saw that Oswald didn’t buy a ticket and told a cashier, who called the police.
Although it came after an afternoon of tragedy, Texas Theatre operator Barak Epstein said Oswald’s arrest may have been the most positive part of that story — one that cemented the theater’s historical significance.
“I think maybe if that hadn't happened here and things had run its course in the city and on this street, maybe this theater wouldn't be here, if it was just another old theater that was past its prime and was bulldozed,” he said.
Epstein, 44, is a University of North Texas film school graduate who had an early desire to grow the independent film and theater space in Dallas. The Oak Cliff Foundation had already done some work to restore and maintain the theater — one of the oldest in Dallas — but Epstein said it was with the help of director Jason Reimer in 2010 that the theater became a functioning business that centered indie films.
The theater is going big for the 60th anniversary of the assassination Wednesday. The schedule for the Texas Theatre’s JFK Day on Wednesday includes a double feature of “War is Hell” and “Cry of Battle,” a 1963 film also slated to play the day Oswald was arrested but which Epstein said likely didn’t because of the chaos.
”War Is Hell” is a B-movie that likely only exists now in bits and pieces. Theater staff took on the task of reconstructing it partially by using a silent version of the film and a 16-millimeter print from overseas.
“If the movie was not the movie that was playing when Lee Harvey Oswald was captured, it would probably be lost,” Epstein said. “It would probably only exist in that three-minute version that you can find that's silent. And other than that, no one would care about it.”
Visitors can also view a photo exhibit from the Dallas Municipal Archives, watch a director’s cut of Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and watch the Texas Theatre’s own production: “He Shoulda Bought a Ticket,” a live reading of Warren Commission interviews with the theater employees who turned Oswald in.
Epstein said he and other theater staff are used to fielding questions about the assassination and hosting events for a stream of JFK-related groups.
They want it to be known for more than Kennedy and Oswald — but he said that doesn't mean they don't commemorate what happened in Dallas 60 years ago Wednesday.
“We think hopefully that it's a place that the whole community and the whole DFW and Texas and people traveling from other cities and other countries, to be frank, can enjoy,” Epstein said. “And so, most people who work here have pride in that.”
Got a tip? Email Toluwani Osibamowo at tosibamowo@kera.org. You can follow Toluwani on Twitter @tosibamowo.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.
