Sam Rayburn Library and Museum, Political museum and research library in Bonham, United States.
The Sam Rayburn Library and Museum is a steel-and-concrete-framed building at 800 West Sam Rayburn Drive, clad in white Georgia marble on a base of Texas red granite. Roscoe DeWitt designed it in 1957 to echo the Classical architecture of Washington, D.C. Inside, a black Italian marble lobby leads to a replica of Rayburn's office, two galleries in the west wing and a reading room in the east wing.
Sam Rayburn dedicated the building in 1957 as a working library and research center in the manner of a presidential library, with former president Harry Truman as guest of honor. It was designed by Roscoe DeWitt and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Since 2012 the 1857 House rostrum has stood in the main exhibit room.
Rayburn insisted the library be a working research centre, not just a memorial, and it holds a complete run of published Congressional proceedings from the First Continental Congress of 1774 onward. In the reading room, visitors can see a 2,500-year-old Greek urn given to Rayburn by the Greek Palace Guard for his help to the Kingdom of Greece during the Greek Civil War.
The library and museum stands at 800 West Sam Rayburn Drive, west of Bonham's central square, in a residential setting reached by car. The reading room serves researchers and locals consulting Rayburn's personal books and the published proceedings of Congress from 1774 onward. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 and is operated by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.
The white marble Speaker's rostrum used in the House of Representatives from 1857 to 1950 was removed during the 1950 Capitol renovation and presented to Rayburn by his House colleagues; it now stands in the Rostrum Gallery. Rayburn's office replica holds a fireplace installed in the House in 1857 and a chandelier moved from the White House on Theodore Roosevelt's orders.
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