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

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 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