DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this story, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, every piece of ground in Texas has got a history, but some parcels carry more weight than others. This one sits in Dallas, and before we get to the moment everybody knows, let me walk you through what came before — because this land has been a whole lot of things.
It started with John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas himself. This was his site. Hard to imagine, standing there on that corner today, but that's where it begins.
Then came the 1880s, and a French native by the name of Maxime Guillot set up a wagon shop right here. Wheels and axles and the sounds of a working trade. By 1894, a man named Phil L.
Mitchell came along and purchased the land. Mitchell was president and director of the Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois, and he had plans. He put up an office building for the firm's Texas division — they called it the Southern Rock Island Plow Company — and that five-story structure was completed four years after he bought the property.
Now here's where fate has a little something to say. In 1901, that building was destroyed by fire. Gone.
But that same year, under the supervision of the company's vice president and general manager, a man named F. B. Jones, work was completed on a new structure.
Built to resemble the one that had burned. Romanesque Revival style, they call it — that distinctive commercial look with its rounded arches and heavy stonework. It rose up on the same ground, wearing the face of what came before.
Years passed. Decades passed. In 1937, the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property.
Later, under the direction of D. H. Byrd, the building was leased to a variety of businesses.
One of those tenants was the Texas School Book Depository. Textbooks. Ordinary commerce on an ordinary block.
And then came November 22, 1963. On that day, the presidential motorcade passed the site. And from a sixth floor window of that building — the one built to replace the one that burned, on land once owned by the founder of Dallas — Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F.
Kennedy. Just like that, everything that came before — the wagon shop, the plow company, the fire, the rebuilding — all of it receded into the background. The building gained national notoriety in a single moment, and it has never let go of it since.
Some ground just carries weight. This is that ground.
What the marker says
This site was originally owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas. During the 1880s French native Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop here. In 1894 the land was purchased by Phil L. Mitchell, president and director of the Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois. An office building for the firm's Texas division, known as the Southern Rock Island Plow Company, was completed here four years later. In 1901 the five-story structure was destroyed by fire. That same year, under supervision of the company vice president and general manager F. B. Jones, work was completed on this structure. Built to resemble the earlier edifice, it features characteristics of the commercial Romanesque Revival style. In 1937 the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property. Later, under the direction of D. H. Byrd, the building was leased to a variety of businesses, including the Texas School Book Depository. On November 22, 1963, the building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980