Texas School Book Depository, Dallas 1970s
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This photograph shows the now-famous Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, captured during a period when it was still serving everyday commercial purposes rather than functioning as a memorial museum. Built in 1898 in a Romanesque Revival style, the seven-story red-brick warehouse was originally part of Dallas’s growing industrial district. By the early 1960s it housed textbook storage and distribution — a routine, unremarkable use for a structure that would soon become internationally known.
Its place in history was sealed on November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Shots were fired from a sixth-floor southeast window, and investigators later found a rifle and cartridges there. The building instantly became one of the most scrutinized locations in the world.
In this 1970s view, the famous Hertz Rent-A-Car rooftop billboard remains in place — a fixture seen in news broadcasts from the day of the assassination. At street level, the entrance bears the sign “Carraway’s BBQ,” reflecting the building’s continued commercial life in the years before historic designation and redevelopment. The fountain, green space, and surrounding road layout are all recognizable elements of Dealey Plaza — itself designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
Today, the building houses the Sixth Floor Museum, but here it stands in a transitional moment — not yet fully a memorial, not quite an ordinary warehouse. A silent witness to history, photographed at a time when memory, mystery, and everyday life all coexisted on the same sidewalks.