Postcards from the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum in Dallas' Fair Park

The Southwestern Historical Wax Museum opened at Fair Park in Dallas on September 15, 1963, as a part of the State Fair of Texas. Shortly after the Kennedy assassination, wax museums--which were popular attractions across the United States in the 1960s--began creating figures and set pieces to memorialize President Kennedy and the events of November 22, 1963. The Dallas museum was no exception.

Between September 1964 and November 1965, three assassination-related vignettes opened at the wax museum depicting the Kennedys and Connallys arriving at Dallas Love Field, Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One, and alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald--rifle in hand--among cardboard book boxes. Oswald's mother, Marguerite, visited her son's wax likeness in November 1965 and returned several times over the years. A photograph of Marguerite with this wax figure can been seen in James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case (1992). Photographs of the Kennedy vignettes at the Dallas museum and other U.S. wax museums can be found in Gene Gurney's America in Wax (1977).  Both of these books are available in The Sixth Floor Museum's Reading Room.

Interestingly, in June 1967, Jack Ruby's former roommate, George Senator, sold the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum a suit of clothes allegedly worn by Ruby. In addition to its wax figures, the museum collected and displayed a variety of historical artifacts such as vintage firearms, miniatures, and sewing machines, while some of the wax figures even wore clothing once owned by the real personalities. Although several wax museums in the United States featured vignettes depicting the instantly recognizable moment when Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, such a display was never part of the Dallas museum.

In April 1971, the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum announced its move from Fair Park to expanded facilities in Grand Prairie, Texas, re-opening under the same name on May 19, 1972. The assassination vignettes were part of this move and, along with a set piece depicting the Lincoln assassination at Ford's Theatre, formed a "Lincoln and Kennedy" section which emphasized alleged coincidences between the two martyred leaders. Unfortunately, a four-alarm fire on September 9, 1988, completely destroyed the museum, all of its historical artifacts, and all but one of its wax figures (a wax cowgirl in the museum's exterior box office partially survived the blaze). A smaller wax museum, combined with a new Ripley's Believe it or Not! exhibition, opened in segments at the site between June 1989 and March 1990. As of 2012, this museum--now known as Louis Tussaud's Palace of Wax--includes a single wax figure of President John F. Kennedy as part of a "Hall of Presidents" display but there is no direct reference to the assassination.

Drew Hunter, creative director of the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum for several years, recorded an oral history with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in 2010. - Stephen Fagin, Associate Curator