Texas School Book Depository, Historic book warehouse in West End District, Dallas, United States
The Texas School Book Depository is a seven-story orange-brick building at 411 Elm Street, on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets facing Dealey Plaza. Brick piers divide both visible facades into vertical bays: six stories of tall round-arched windows with rectangular windows between the arches, and a top story of rectangular windows under a pale cornice. The base is clad in light stone, and the ground floor of the front facade carries the inscription "DALLAS COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING" above a recessed entrance.
The site held Maxime Guillot's wagon shop in the 1880s before the Rock Island Plow Company bought it in 1894 and built a five-story home for its Southern Rock Island Plow division. Lightning struck the building in 1901 and it nearly burned down; it was rebuilt in 1902 in the Commercial Romanesque Revival style and raised to seven stories. From 1940 the John Sexton grocery wholesaler leased it, and in 1963 the Texas School Book Depository Company stored textbooks here. On November 22, 1963, employee Lee Harvey Oswald fired from a sixth-floor southeastern window at President Kennedy's motorcade. Dallas County bought the building in 1977 and dedicated it as the Dallas County Administration Building in March 1981.
The structure takes its name from the textbook distributor that once stored and shipped school materials for Texas classrooms. Today people from around the world visit the site to understand how a single day altered American history.
The Sixth Floor Museum occupies the sixth floor, reached by elevator from the Elm Street entrance; the seventh-floor gallery opened in 2002. The building sits on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, facing Dealey Plaza. Allow time to look out from the southeast corner windows toward the street below.
The sixth floor was not left untouched: the museum recreated the 1963 scene, and the original sniper's perch is enclosed behind glass. The 1991 film JFK paid $50,000 to place a figure at that window, filming only in set hours with five people on the floor.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,743 contributors worldwide.