/internal/media/dispatcher/78249/fullSam Childers Oral History06/09/2025Duration: 53 MinutesBorn digital (.m2ts file)Oral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza2025.001.00480Videotaped oral history interview with Sam Childers. An author and historian, Childers is a veteran of several Dallas institutions, including The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture and the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Childers, who has met several U.S. presidents, was also operations director at the Friends of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City, Texas.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on June 9, 2025 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is fifty-three minutes long.Oral Histories733860E-100E-1074653Oral history0E-10Videotaped oral history interview with Sam Childers. An author and historian, Childers is a veteran of several Dallas institutions, including The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture and the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Childers, who has met several U.S. presidents, was also operations director at the Friends of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City, Texas.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on June 9, 2025 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is fifty-three minutes long.Oral historiesU.S. presidentsLiterature"The Sixth Floor"Dealey PlazaHertz signMemorialsResearchers1960sExhibitionsNixon, Richard M.Truman, Harry S.West, JeffMack, GaryPorter, BobHunt, ConoverAdams, LindalynKennedy, John F., Jr.Johnson, Luci BainesJohnson, Lynda BirdFagin, StephenThe Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey PlazaSouthern Methodist UniversityOld Red CourthouseDallasTulsaNon-Rememberers (OHC)History of 411 Elm Street and The Sixth Floor Museum (OHC)Authors, Filmmakers, and Researchers (OHC)Dallas and 1960s History and Culture (OHC)Alongside his involvement with historic preservation, Sam Childers is the author of Historic Dallas Hotels (2010). The book follows the evolution of hotels in Dallas and its journey to establishing itself as a "hotel town." Childers has also contributed entries for the Handbook of Texas History at the Texas State Historical Association. His entry on the history of the LGBT community in Dallas may be found here on the TSHA website: Dallas LGBT Community. - Riley Harris, Collections CatalogerI have known Sam Childers for more than a quarter century and consider him to be a great friend. Sam was employed at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza when I first joined the staff in 2000. We have kept in touch as he has gone on to contribute to several other Dallas institutions, including the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture and the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Beyond DFW, Childers also worked at the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, and was operations director at the Friends of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City, Texas. Over the last twenty years, I have also worked closely with Sam on Legacies Dallas History Journal where he has been a longtime editorial assistant and contributor.
In addition to this oral history, Sam was a guest speaker at The Sixth Floor Museum on Presidents Day in 2007, giving a lecture on presidential visits to Dallas that was recorded as part of the Oral History Project. - Stephen Fagin, Curator