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Color photo of second floor office inside Texas School Book Depository
Color photo of second floor office inside Texas School Book Depository

Color photo of second floor office inside Texas School Book Depository

Object number2012.065.0001
Date11/23/1963
ClassificationsPhotographs
Photographer Spaulding Jones
ObjectPhotograph (color)
Credit LineSpaulding Jones Family Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumPaper
Dimensions3 1/4 × 4 3/4 in. (8.3 × 12.1 cm)
DescriptionColor photographic print on Kodak paper taken by amateur photographer Spaulding Jones inside the Texas School Book Depository building on the morning of November 23, 1963. This image shows the main entrance to the Texas School Book Depository Company office on the second floor. There is a desk in the right side of the image, and a paneled wall and column on the left. Glass doors leading to elevators are in the background.
Curatorial Commentary

As the regional manager for Macmillan and Company publishers, Spaulding Jones had an office on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building in 1963. According to an oral history recorded in 1996, Mr. Jones believed that he encountered Lee Harvey Oswald on the morning of the assassination. Jones, who was with his two daughters at the Depository that day, recalled, "About the time I walked in and we were walking over to the elevator, another person walked in and took the elevator up with us. And he was just a person who worked in that Depository, and he did not go to the same floor that I did. He went to the third floor; I believe it was the third floor, but I'm not sure. I know that he went up with us on the elevator. And I just recognized him as one of the workers. Later on, I found out that that was Lee Harvey Oswald."

Jones had intended to bring his 35mm camera with him to the office that day, but he accidentally left it at home. According to his oral history, he took his camera to the Depository the next morning, on Saturday, November 23, and went to the sixth floor to photograph the crime scenes. He recalled being challenged by law enforcement and was told that he was not allowed on the sixth floor. He recalled, "And I said, 'This is my building, and I can go anywhere that I want.' And they let me go." Based on the different handwritten dates on the backs of his photo prints and the presence and then absence of flowers in Dealey Plaza, Jones apparently ventured to the sixth floor with his camera on multiple occasions. His are the only known color photographs taken of the sniper's perch and rifle location during the weekend of the assassination.

Mr. Jones passed away on July 2, 1997, at the age of 73. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

A handwritten notation on the back of this photograph, presumably written by Mr. Jones at some point, incorrectly identifies this space as the entrance to the Macmillan and Co. regional office on the fourth floor. A November 1963 FBI photo of this same space confirms that it was actually the second floor entrance to the Texas School Book Depository Company office. A copy of this FBI photograph, 2003.006.0019, is found in the Museum's Nat Pinkston Collection. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator
Handwriting on the back of the photograph reads: "11-22-63", but in his oral history with The Sixth Floor Museum on April 6, 1996 (1996.055.0007), Mr. Jones says that he forgot his camera that day. He instead brought it in the next day, November 23, 1963, and took photos of the building.  - Stephanie Allen-Givens, Collections and Exhibits Manager