Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza occupies the former Texas School Book Depository building at 411 Elm Street in Dallas, Texas, at the exact location from which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The building's sixth floor has been preserved as a museum since 1989 and offers one of the most emotionally resonant historical experiences in the United States.

The museum's core exhibit occupies the entire sixth floor, where the southeast corner window—the so-called sniper's nest—is preserved behind glass exactly as crime scene photographs documented it: a stack of book cartons, a paper bag, and the partially open corner window. Visitors walk a chronological timeline from Kennedy's presidency through the assassination, the investigation, and the aftermath, using archival film, photographs, oral histories, and original artifacts. The exhibition presents documented evidence and competing interpretations with scholarly balance rather than advocacy.

The seventh floor contains a supplemental gallery with deeper dives into the Warren Commission, Jack Ruby, and the assassination's lasting cultural impact. Dallas's physical geography plays a central role: the museum incorporates direct views of Elm Street below, where the white painted X on the pavement marks the approximate impact point, with the grassy knoll and the underpass visible from the preserved windows.

An audio guide with more than 80 narrated stops is included with admission and is highly recommended for first-time visitors. Photography is permitted throughout the museum except in the immediate vicinity of the preserved corner window. Dealey Plaza outside the building is a National Historic Landmark and free to explore.