Gene Veal and Utah Rogers Oral History

Object number2001.001.0014

Date08/30/2001

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Utah Rogers

Oral history interview subject Gene D. Veal

Oral history interviewer Gary Mack (1946 - 2015)

Oral history interviewer Arlinda Abbott

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumHi-8 videotape

DimensionsDuration: 108 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Gene Veal and Utah Rogers. Veal was a railroad switching tower operator from 1952 to 1989 and provided extensive information about the history and operation of the railroad switching tower located in the parking lot of the former Texas School Book Depository building. He also knew and worked with tower operator Lee Bowers, an assassination eyewitness who died in 1966. Rogers, a switchman for Union Terminal, was on a train traveling over the Triple Underpass moments before the assassination. Interview recorded at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on August 30, 2001 by Gary Mack, Arlinda Abbott, and Stephen Fagin. The interview is one hour and forty-eight minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

Constructed in 1916, the railroad switching tower in the parking lot of the former Texas School Book Depository building has long been a site of researcher interest and visitor curiosity. Assassination eyewitness Lee Bowers, who was working inside the tower on November 22, 1963, told the Warren Commission in 1964 about men he saw near or behind the stockade fence atop the grassy knoll and described "some commotion" at the time of the shooting. With more certainty, he later told author Mark Lane that he observed "a flash of light or smoke" near where the men were standing. Bowers died in a car accident in 1966 and remains the most prominent of the "mysterious deaths" that followed the Kennedy assassination.

As part of a tower restoration project in the early 2000s, the Museum actively pursued oral histories with former tower operators and railroad personnel who could talk about the switching tower's history and operation as well as operator Lee Bowers. This 2001 session was one of three recordings done with the late Gene Veal. In addition to Veal and Utah Rogers, the Museum also recorded oral histories with Rock Island Railroad employee Robert Fredland, tower operator Barney Mozley and Union Terminal switchman Olan DeGaugh.

Gene Veal passed away on October 25, 2011. Utah Rogers passed away on September 24, 2016. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator