Overview

​Scope and Content

Collection contains a Historic American Building Survey (HABS) on the Dallas Municipal Building and its areas associated with Lee Harvey Oswald.  HABS is the nation's first federal preservation program; it began in 1933 to document America's architectural heritage.   As a national survey, the HABS collection is intended to represent a complete digest; thus, the building selections range in type and style from the monumental and architect-designed to the utilitarian and vernacular.

Preservation Dallas, as part of the organization's Legacy Project of 2013 to document places associated with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, provided this documentation for those spaces associated with Lee Harvey Oswald within Dallas's Municipal Building located at 106 South Harwood.  This documentation follows HABS Level Ill standards, except that the photography is in color, rather than black and white.

The Dallas Municipal Building is significant for its association with both the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and the subsequent detention of the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.  The Dallas Police Department's offices and the city's jail were both housed in the Municipal Building.  Over approximately a forty-eight hour time frame, both national and international media converged on this building and broadcasted to the world the events taking place inside.

—Information compiled from the study itself.

Organization

​NA

Access

Permission to publish, reproduce, distribute, or use by any and all other current or future developed methods or procedures must be obtained in writing from the Dallas Municipal Archives. All rights are reserved and retained regardless of current or future development or laws that may apply to fair use standards.  It is the responsibility of the user to obtain copyright authorization for any images.

Citation

Historic American Building Survey - Dallas Municipal Building, 2014 (Box 1, Folder 1), Dallas Municipal Archives

Related Materials

1991-001—Dallas Police Department Records Related to the Assassination of John F Kennedy, 1963-1992

Index Terms

Dallas -- Texas -- History
Historic buildings -- Texas -- Dallas
Municipal buildings -- TEXAS -- DALLAS
Oswald, Lee Harvey

Container List​