Photo of the stairs near the rifle location in the Texas School Book Depository

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Black and white photographic print of the rifle location in the northwest corner of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building. The photo was taken in November 1963 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as evidence in the days following the assassination of President Kennedy. There is a stairwell in the upper left of the photograph with stacks of cardboard boxes along the back of the photo and in the foreground. Some of the boxes are marked "Books" and there is a pathway of clear hardwood flooring in the center of the photograph.

Object Details

Object title:

Photo of the stairs near the rifle location in the Texas School Book Depository

Date:

November 1963

Terms:

Staircases

Boxes

Photographs

Investigations

Evidence

Pinkston, Nat A.

Texas School Book Depository

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Dallas

Medium:

Paper

Dimensions:

4 x 5 in. (10.2 x 12.7 cm)

Credit line:

Nat Pinkston Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

Object number:

2003.006.0011

Curatorial Note:

This FBI photographic print was in the personal collection of retired agent Nat A. Pinkston (1915-2011). Pinkston was a Dallas attorney prior to joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He retired from the Dallas FBI office in 1967 after twenty-eight years of service. Pinkston was involved in the local assassination investigation, notably tracing ownership of the Mannlicher-Carcano found in the Depository to employee Lee Harvey Oswald. He was also dispatched to the Texas School Book Depository on December 2, 1963, after Lee Harvey Oswald's clipboard was discovered in the northwest corner of the sixth floor near where the rifle had been found shortly after the assassination. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

Today, all that remains of the northwest stairwell inside the Texas School Book Depository building is the small portion visible in this 1963 FBI photograph. After Dallas County purchased and began renovating the warehouse in the late 1970s, the original stairwell was removed to make way for a variety of government offices on floors two through five. This small section of the stairwell was kept in place to maintain the historical integrity of the sixth floor. The "Rifle Location" is one of two protected evidentiary areas on the sixth floor that have been reconstructed to appear as they were in November 1963, based on crime scene photographs like this one, taken either by the FBI or the Dallas Police Department. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator