Just a few blocks from The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is the Old Red Museum, so named because of its beautiful red brick structure.
Originally built as a county courthouse, it's a huge, ornate building that The Brother and I promptly fell in love with. We could see the clock tower from our rooms at the Hyatt. When it was outgrown and replaced with a new courthouse, it was renovated and became a historically designated building. It is now home to a huge exhibit of Dallas County historical artifacts.
The self-tour is broken up into four sections for the time periods of: Prehistory - 1873, 1874 - 1917, 1918 - 1945, and 1946 - 2007. Each section begins with a brief video giving background on the time period, then you can go around and check out the artifacts from that period.
They have some amazing stuff. Check it out:
1857 grocery ledger:
Morphine kit that could be used to administer painkillers to soldiers...or put down horses in the battlefield:
George "Spanky" McFarland of Our Gang/The Little Rascals was a Dallas native. They have his little checkerboard britches!
The gun in the middle belonged to Clyde Barrow:
Actual Klan outfit. Pretty creepy:
No joke - the first frozen margarita machine was invented in Dallas:
Dallas native Mariano Martinez was inspired by Slurpee machines he saw at 7-11 stores. This isn't even the original - that one was snapped up by The Smithsonian.
Hats off to the museum for having Tom Landry's trademark fedora:
And J.R. Ewing's Stetson:
The museum also has some Kennedy assassination artifacts. The handcuffs worn by Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby:
And a "doodle" made by Ruby while he was in jail for the shooting:
The Brother and I loved this staircase. I got Bradbury Building vibes from it:
The pictures here are only a small sample of what you see in this museum. They've done a great job of cataloging the history of the area. Adult admission is only $10 (less for seniors, students, and kids) and well worth it.
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