Connect in Texas with JFK and LBJ

American and Presidential History buffs traveling through Texas can experience the Kennedy-Johnson era by visiting the Sixth Floor Museum and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum.

Start of in Dallas at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (411 Elm Street), which is situated on the sixth and seventh floors of an early 20th-century warehouse that was called the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Since opening its doors on Presidents Day in 1989, over six million international visitors have visited this site to view the museum's collection of over 35,000 visual, audio, documentary and artifactual documentation depicting the assassination and legacy of President John F. Kennedy.

The permanent John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation exhibit consists of 400 photographs, 45 minutes of documentary films, and artifacts to document the era of the early '60s and the events leading up to that day. The highlights of this exhibit include the Corner Window, a recreation of the southeast window as it was on that day when Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President, the Crisis Hours, a timeline of the events that transpired starting from Friday noon and concluding at midnight on Monday with a Presidential burial and the swearing in of Lyndon Baines Johnson as President: and the Investigations, which puts the four investigations into the JFK assassination.

An Audio guide available in seven languages and an English youth version is narrated by Pierce Allman, who was the first reporter to broadcast from the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963. Also, this guide includes snippets historic radio broadcasts as well as the voices of reporters, police officers and eyewitness accounts. In addition, a cell phone tour with a map is available for a cost of $2.50 with museum admission or $5.00 if purchased separately that gives an overview of 3.07-acre Dealey Plaza Park and other nearby historic sites.

The museum is Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm and Mondays from 12pm to 6pm, and is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission price which includes the audio guide is $ 13.50 for adults and $12.50 for Senior (Ages 65+) and Youth (Ages 6-18). Children up to five years old are admitted free, though there is a charge of $3.50 for the youth audio guide.

Then head on down to Austin and check out the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum one of 13 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. Here one will find artifacts such as Kennedy's Catholic Missal on board Air Force One that was used to administer the Oath of Office to LBJ, along with 45,000 million pages of historical documents, 500,000 photos, a million feet of motion picture film, and 5,000 hours of recordings from the public career of the 36^th President of the United States. Additional information about the LBJ Museum can be found here.