DUANE
Duane's take
My tellin' of this marker starts with a city that outgrew its britches. 1910: Dallas is past ninety thousand people and city hall can't hold 'em. So the city pulls off a trade folks still benefit from — sells the old corner at Commerce and Akard to Adolphus Busch, beer money and all, who raises the Adolphus Hotel on the spot. C.
C. Slaughter points the city to this site instead. Bonds pass in 1912, shovels hit dirt May 1913, and on October seventeenth, 1914 — openin' day of the State Fair, because Dallas knows timing — the new city hall throws open its doors.
Five stories of Texas gray granite, Corinthian columns up the facade, marble floors, mahogany trim. C. D.
Hill and Company drew it; the marker calls it Beaux-Arts, which is French for 'spared no expense.' I'll tell the last part plain, because it deserves plain: in the basement of the municipal building next door, on November twenty-fourth, 1963, Jack Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President Kennedy. Some buildings collect more history than they ask for. All of it's on the marker.
What the marker says
In May 1910 Dallas officials determined that the City Hall, then situated on the northwest corner of Commerce and Akard Streets, had become too small to serve adequately the city's population of over 90,000. They sold the property to Adolphus Busch, who built the Adolphus Hotel at that site. A number of locations were considered for the new municipal facility before C. C. Slaughter suggested this site, which the city purchased in the fall of 1911. Voters approved a bond issue in an April 1912 election, and construction began in May 1913. The completed building opened on Oct. 17, 1914, to coincide with the start of the State Fair. C. D. Hill and Co. of Dallas designed the five-story Beaux-arts City Hall, constructed of Texas gray granite. Ornate Corinthian columns line the Classical facade. The interior of the structure, originally finished with marble floors and mahogany woodwork, has been remodeled periodically to provide additional office space. In 1956 the adjacent municipal building was erected to serve the growing city. In the basement of this structure on Nov. 24, 1963, Jack Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978