Museums that Matter – The Sixth Floor Museum – Dallas, Texas

Forgive me if I seem a little off today. I saw Disturbed and Killswitch Engage at the Grand Prairie Nokia last night, and I think my skull is still a bit rattled. (Killswitch absolutely murdered it, btw, so if you ever have the chance to see’em live, it’s a must!)

Now, on to business!

I love my town. I’ve lived here for 16 years, and though I do occasionally pine for the cosmopolitan delights of a New York or San Francisco, I can say in all honesty that Dallas is probably a place I could spend my whole life. Great restaurants, big theatres, laidback personality and plenty of open road all around for driving fans like me.

It’s a bummer, then, that so little of Dallas has made it into the national tourism brain trust. We’ve got Southfork (where they filmed Dallas), Dealey Plaza and that’s about it. Whether it’s J.R. or JFK, our two most famous attractions are centered on people who got shot.

I’ll continue to fight for Dallas as a leading Texas tourist destination, but for now I’ll break down and go with an old standard: The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

When people with time to kill (bad choice of words) do visit Dallas, it’s quite common to want to see Dealey Plaza, the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets in downtown Dallas where President John F. Kennedy was shot (allegedly) by Lee Harvey Oswald. They want to see the intersection, they want to see the Texas School Book Depository, and they want to see the Grassy Knoll. Before 1989, the experience was underwhelming to say the least, after all, a street’s a street, a knoll’s a knoll, and a School Book Depository is a School Book Depository.

Someone finally realized that all these visitors wanted something more, and they were willing to pay for it. So in 1989, on President’s Day in fact, the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza opened its doors.

The location, in the very building and on the very floor that Oswald fired that tragic shot, is a bit sensationalistic, but the Sixth Floor Museum is a stirring tribute to the former President and a fascinating exploration into the events of that fateful day nonetheless.

The museum has one permanent exhibit on the sixth floor and usually one or more temporary exhibits on the seventh. The permanent exhibit, “John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation”, visits the social and political turmoil of the 1960s through photograph, article and video before moving on to the events of November 22, 1963. You’ll see the window from which the shot is believed to have been fired, along with a recreation of the sniper’s nest found just a few hours after the shooting.

The exhibit then moves into the immediate turmoil of the events: the murder of police officer J.D. Tippit, the arrest of Oswald, the discovery of the rifle, the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby, and finally the legacy and the mystery. Indeed, for thousands of individuals, the murder of John F. Kennedy remains an unsolved case, and the Sixth Floor Museum delves into this controversy, though respectfully.

It’s certainly better than just looking at a grassy knoll and expecting it to mean something.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is located in the Dallas County Administration Building (formerly the Texas School Book Depository) in downtown Dallas and is open daily. Regular adult admission is $13.50 and includes an audio guide. The tour is otherwise self-paced. Learn more.

One of our new favorites in Dallas area hotels is the Doubletree Club Dallas – Farmers Branch. It’s a few miles out from the plaza, but if our poll tells us anything, a clean, comfortable stay is more important than the best location anyway, and that’s what the Doubletree will offer.

Related Posts

1. Museums that Matter – The Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, CT
2. Museums that Matter – Carolinas Aviation Museum
3. Museums that Matter – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. Museums that Matter – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
5. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs – Dallas, Texas
6. New & Improved – Dallas Zoo in Dallas, Texas
7. Museums that Matter – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame