On the morning of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy arrived in Dallas for a political trip meant to shore up Democratic support in Texas before the 1964 election. The presidential motorcade — carrying Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie, and their Secret Service detail — moved through downtown Dallas on a route published in that morning's Dallas Morning News.
At 12:30 p.m., as the motorcade turned west onto Elm Street and passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository, shots were fired. Kennedy was struck twice: once in the upper back and once in the head. Connally was also wounded. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, four miles away, where Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. CST. He was 46 years old.
Within minutes, witnesses reported seeing a figure in the sixth-floor window of the Depository. Police found a rifle, spent cartridges, and a homemade paper bag on the sixth floor. At 1:50 p.m., police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald — a 24-year-old former Marine and Depository employee — in a movie theater several miles away. Oswald denied everything. Two days later, while being transferred between police facilities on live national television, Oswald was shot and killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Oswald was never tried. The Warren Commission, convened by President Lyndon Johnson in late 1963, concluded the following year that Oswald acted alone. The question of whether he did has not been resolved in the public mind since.
The Texas School Book Depository was built in 1901 as a commercial warehouse and had been used since 1963 by the Texas School Book Depository Company to store and ship textbooks to public schools across the state. It is a seven-story, red-brick building at the northwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets — the last corner Kennedy's motorcade turned before entering Dealey Plaza's open straightaway.
After the assassination, the building continued to serve as office and warehouse space for years. Dallas County purchased it in 1977 for use as county administration offices. By then it had already become the most-visited building in Dallas, without any official effort to make it one — people simply came. The debate over what to do with the sixth floor lasted a decade.
The Sixth Floor Museum opened on February 20, 1989. The museum now occupies the sixth and seventh floors of the building; the Dallas County administration offices still function in the floors below, which means you enter a working government building to reach the exhibits. That arrangement contributes to the strangeness of the visit in a way that is hard to describe until you're in the elevator.
The museum draws approximately 350,000 visitors per year. It is the most visited paid attraction in Dallas.
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The Sixth Floor Museum's permanent collection covers Kennedy's life, the 1960 presidential campaign, the presidency, the events of November 22, the investigation, and the global response to the assassination. The exhibits occupy roughly 9,000 square feet of the original warehouse floor, with exposed brick walls, original hardwood floors, and an absence of dramatic staging — the space speaks for itself.
The sniper's perch is preserved behind glass in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. The arrangement of boxes Oswald built to conceal himself from view is reproduced to match the evidence photographs taken immediately after the shooting. Standing at the glass and looking down at Elm Street gives visitors an unsettling, firsthand understanding of the angle and the sight line. That window is twelve feet above Elm Street and faces almost directly down the motorcade route.
Other permanent highlights include the FBI scale model used by the Warren Commission during its investigation, twelve photographs and film cameras used by bystanders and press who documented the motorcade and the assassination in real time, and a quiet memorial space for reflection.
The current special exhibition, 'On Assignment: Dallas Times Herald 1963', follows the photojournalists and reporters who covered the events as they happened, using archival prints and original reporter notebooks. It is included with general admission and runs through March 28, 2027.
Photography is not permitted on the sixth-floor exhibit. The included audio guide takes about 90 minutes at a steady pace.
Dealey Plaza is the triangular open space bounded by Main, Commerce, and Elm Streets, directly west of the Book Depository. It was designated a Dallas County Historic District and a National Historic Landmark in 1993. It is free to enter and open continuously — no tickets, no hours.
White Xs painted on the asphalt mark the two spots on Elm Street where Kennedy was hit. These markers are unofficial — painted originally by independent researchers and conspiracy theorists, repainted regularly as Dallas resurfaces the roadway. The city neither endorses nor permanently removes them. They have become a fixture. Visitors frequently stop in traffic on Elm Street to stand on the marks, which is dangerous: Elm is a live road.
The Grassy Knoll is the small rise with a wooden stockade fence and a concrete pergola on the north side of Elm Street. The Warren Commission concluded that all shots came from the Depository. The knoll draws its own visitors because many witnesses reported hearing at least one shot from that direction — the acoustics of the space, surrounded by concrete on three sides, made it difficult for witnesses to pinpoint the source. The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations cited acoustic evidence suggesting a possible second shot from the Knoll; that finding was later challenged by other scientists and has not been resolved.
The pergola and the colonnade on the south side of Elm Street are both original to the plaza's 1930s design. The Dal-Tex Building across Houston Street from the Depository, visible from the plaza, is part of the witness sightlines discussed in every investigation.
The Sixth Floor Museum presents the competing accounts of the assassination without taking a position on which is correct. The Warren Commission's 1964 conclusion — Oswald, acting alone, fired three shots from the sixth floor — is covered alongside the 1979 House Select Committee's conclusion that a second shooter probably fired from the direction of the Grassy Knoll. Declassified government documents, released in stages from 1992 through the most recent tranches in 2022 and 2023, are discussed as ongoing primary sources, not settled evidence.
The museum's care on this question is part of why it is taken seriously by researchers, journalists, and casual visitors alike. It presents the physical evidence, the investigation records, and the witness testimony, and it does not demand that you accept any official conclusion. The Warren Commission model and the witness accounts are both on the floor. The audio guide presents both.
The museum also maintains an archive of oral histories, objects from the period, documents, and film footage — primary sources used by historians and documentary filmmakers. Not all of it is on permanent display. If you have a research interest, the museum's archivists can be contacted through jfk.org.
Where is it? 411 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas 75202, at the northwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets — the former Texas School Book Depository building.
Hours and admission: The museum is generally open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last admission at 5:15 p.m. It is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Confirm current hours at jfk.org before visiting, as schedule variations apply. Online admission as of early 2026: approximately $24 for adults, $20 for youth. Onsite walk-up pricing is higher. The museum is included in the Dallas CityPASS if you plan to visit multiple Dallas attractions.
Tickets: Timed-entry tickets are strongly recommended — they sell out on peak weekends and are frequently unavailable at the door around November 22. Book at jfk.org. Walk-in availability is higher on weekday mornings.
Getting there: The museum is in downtown Dallas. The West End DART station (Green and Orange lines) is the closest transit stop — about a 10-minute walk north on Houston Street brings you to the corner of Elm. Street parking in the surrounding blocks is available but limited. Weekend parking in the lots nearby is easier to find.
How much time? Plan 90 minutes to two hours for the museum plus another 30 minutes to walk Dealey Plaza thoroughly. If you visit on November 22, plan for the ceremony and larger crowds and add an extra 30 to 60 minutes.
The JFK Memorial: One block northeast of Dealey Plaza stands the John F. Kennedy Memorial — a stark, roofless concrete cenotaph designed by architect Philip Johnson, dedicated in 1970. It is a free structure on a public plaza. The design is intentionally austere: four walls with no roof, open to the sky, with no image of Kennedy inside, only his name in gold letters. Its quietness — relative to the constant foot traffic at Dealey Plaza, one block away — makes it worth the short walk.
The Old Red Museum: Directly across Houston Street from the Depository, the Old Red Museum occupies the 1892 Romanesque Revival former Dallas County Courthouse, one of the most architecturally significant buildings in Texas. It documents the history of Dallas and North Texas. Confirm hours and current admission on their website before visiting.
Deep Ellum: Dallas's music and arts neighborhood sits about a mile east of Dealey Plaza, an easy walk along Commerce Street or a short rideshare away. It has a dense concentration of live music venues, independent restaurants, and street murals in converted warehouses from the late 1800s. See our guide to Deep Ellum for where to eat and what to explore there.
