Texas Theatre

Dallas, TX
Opened April 21, 193
Texas Theatre is located in Oak Cliff, at 231 West Jefferson Boulevard. When it was built it was the largest suburban theatre in Dallas. It was also the first movie theatre in Dallas to have air conditioning. In 1931, the cost to build the theatre was roughly $31,000 and the first movie shown at the Texas Theatre was “A Mickey Mouse Cartoon.”
The theatre became famous when Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was arrested there after shooting a Dallas police officer. The police were notified by the managerthat Oswald was in the theatre, and he was arrested there and taken to jail. Two days later, he was shot by Jack Ruby as he was being taken to the County Jail.

Artifact:

Lee Harvey Oswald Chair
The actual chair in which Oswald was sitting in is no longer there, but the location of where he sat the day he was arrested is very simply noted with gold paint on the seat back. Interestingly, the original chair was taken by the manager and later confiscated by the FBI as court room evidence.​