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Photo of the 2nd floor office area in the Texas School Book Depository building
Photo of the 2nd floor office area in the Texas School Book Depository building

Photo of the 2nd floor office area in the Texas School Book Depository building

Object number2003.006.0017
DateNovember 1963
ClassificationsPhotographs
Creator Federal Bureau of Investigation
ObjectPhotograph (b&w)
Credit LineNat Pinkston Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumPaper
Dimensions5 x 4 in. (12.7 x 10.2 cm)
Collections
DescriptionBlack and white photographic print of the second floor South-Western Publishing office in 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. The photograph was taken from the entrance to the room looking east. A row of desks and wooden support columns runs along the right side of the photograph and a bank of filing cabinets is on the left. There is a desk against the back wall in the center of the photograph with a wheeled chair a ways in front of it. The visible walls are wood paneled.
Curatorial Commentary
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
South-Western Publishing stenographer (and assassination eyewitness) Karen Westbrook Scranton participated in an educational program at The Sixth Floor Museum in 2017. This program may be viewed in full on the Museum's YouTube channel: Living History with Karen Westbrook Scranton - YouTube. Shortly after this program, Ms. Scranton donated six color photographs taken in the South-Western Publishing office in December 1963. All of those images may also be viewed in the Museum's online collections database: Results – Search Objects – eMuseum (jfk.org).-- Stephen Fagin, Curator