Image of Governor Connally's blood-spattered hat hanging in Jesse Curry's office

Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry returned to Dallas police headquarters around 4:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963, after witnessing the swearing-in of Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field. No one knows exactly when and how Curry ended up with the blood-stained hat that Texas Governor John Connally held in his lap during the Dallas motorcade, but Curry had it hanging on a rack in his office when Dallas Morning News chief photographer Tom Dillard arrived with his camera sometime after 8:30 p.m. In addition to this photograph, Dillard took a series of images of Chief Curry seated at his desk. - Stephen Fagin, Curator   

In their 1964 Report, the Warren Commission described the third floor of Dallas police headquarters like this: "The focal center of the Police and Courts Building during Oswald's detention was the third floor, which housed the main offices of the Dallas Police Department. The public elevators on this floor opened into a lobby midpoint of a corridor that extended along the length of the floor for about 140 feet. At one end of this 7-foot-wide corridor were the offices occupied by Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry and his immediate subordinates; at the other end was a small pressroom that could accommodate only a handful of reporters. Along this corridor were other police offices, including those of the major detective bureaus. Between the pressroom and the lobby was the complex of offices belonging to the homicide and robbery bureau, headed by Capt. J. Will Fritz." Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2175 is a third floor layout of Dallas police headquarters. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator