Drew Hunter Oral History

Since 1997, and current as of summer 2024, Drew Hunter is vice president of creative design at Sally Dark Rides in Jacksonville, Florida. In that capacity, Hunter has contributed to a wide variety of themed attractions around the world, including multiple Six Flags, Legoland and Universal Studios theme parks, zoos across the United States, Tower Bridge in London, Hersheypark in Pennsylvania, Disney on Ice, Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia, Ripley's Believe it or Not, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Neiman Marcus in Dallas and Grand Century Plaza in Hong Kong. - Stephen Fagin, Curator

Billed as the "only permanent wax museum in the Southwest" when it opened with the State Fair of Texas in September 1963, the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum initially included 76 figures primarily depicting western scenes such as the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the battle of the Alamo. Within a year of opening, the museum began adding Kennedy assassination tableaus, including a swearing-in diorama featuring President Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One. The actual U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes dedicated the tableau personally in September 1964. As the wax museum continued to grow, so did its historical collections on display, including 287 antique firearms that made up the multimillion-dollar Schwend Collection of Outlaw Guns. By the early 1970s, the museum had outgrown its original Fair Park location and moved to a larger 40,000-square foot facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, which opened in May 1972. By 1988, the museum was described by The Dallas Morning News as "America's largest wax museum" and included some 300 wax figures and hundreds of historical artifacts. Unfortunately, as discussed at length in this oral history, the entire museum and its contents were destroyed by a four-alarm fire on Friday, September 9, 1988. The nearly twenty-five-year-old Kennedy tableaus, still on display in the museum, were among the exhibits lost. Less than a month later, museum owners declared that the structure would be rebuilt. Occupying the same footprint as the original museum, a combination Palace of Wax and Ripley's Believe It or Not attraction opened in 1990. Now owned by Ripley Entertainment Inc., the rebuilt building (as of summer 2024) now houses multiple themed attractions, including Louis Tussaud's Waxworks. Coming full circle in a way, the exhibit today includes a figure of John F. Kennedy as part of a hall of presidents tableau. - Stephen Fagin, Curator