The 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial was born out of American Airlines Flight Attendant Valerie Thompson’s desire to honor the crewmembers killed on the planes hijacked on Sept. 11: American Airlines flights 11 and 77 and United Airlines flights 93 and 175. Her dream became reality when the monument was dedicated on July 4, 2008. Based on a design by Bryce Cameron Liston of Salt Lake City, Utah, and sculpted by Dean Thompson, the memorial features bronze sculptures of two pilots, two flight attendants and a child who represents the traveling public. The memorial’s base stands 18 feet tall. The names of crewmembers on the four flights are engraved on slabs of granite surrounding the base.
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Baccus Cemetery in Plano, Texas, dates to 1847 when Henry Cook established the cemetery to bury his son, Daniel. The cemetery was initially known as Cook Cemetery. After Cook died in 1862, his daughter, Rachel, acquired the land, and in 1878, she deeded it to Cook’s heirs for use as a cemetery and a church, Baccus Christian Church. While the church was later abandoned, the cemetery, named Baccus Cemetery in about 1915, is still in use.
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The 66-acre Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens is located on the southeastern shore of White Rock Lake in East Dallas. Since opening to the public in 1984, the garden has received many accolades from publications including Architectural Digest, USA Today, Fodor’s Travel, Trip Advisor, The Travel Channel and many others. The Arboretum includes many formal and informal garden spaces, world-recognized trial gardens, a concert lawn, picnic areas, food service areas, a gift shop, orientation theater, classrooms and the historic DeGolyer House.
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Dealey Plaza is today synonymous with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, the history of the plaza dates to 1935 when it was dedicated. Named for longtime Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey, the plaza was completed in 1940. Construction of the 15-acre plaza was made possible after the Trinity River was rerouted to prevent flooding in the area. Home to some of the first settlements, Dealey Plaza is sometimes known as the “birthplace of Dallas.”
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Fort Worth is often considered to be “where the West begins,” and the Fort Worth Stockyards was once the epicenter of the cattle industry. While still in active use for cattle sales, the historic stockyards attract thousands of tourists looking to climb atop a longhorn for a photo op, watch the twice-daily cattle drives or catch a glimpse of the unabated wild west. The Stockyards are home to a number of museums, including the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Stockyards Museum. And, of course, the Grapevine Vintage Railroad.
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The George W. Bush Presidential Center opened on April 25, 2013. The centerpiece is a 9/11 exhibit, but it is but one section of the 14,000-square-foot museum that opened to the public last month. In addition, the museum features a full scale replica of the Oval Office, information about life in The White House, President Bush’s two dogs, a collection of autographed baseballs and an exhibit — complete with hanging chads — about the 2000 election in which Bush defeated then Vice President Al Gore.
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The Grapevine Calaboose, which derived its name from “calabozo,” the Spanish word for dungeon, was built as the town’s first jail in 1914. The Grapevine City Council authorized its construction in 1909. It was originally located elsewhere in town (on Barton Street) and moved to Heritage Park in 1976 and its current location in 1994. The jail apparently house associates of the Barrow Gang. It remained in use until the early 1950s.
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The Grapevine Vintage Railroad takes tourists from the small town of Grapevine, a town that cherishes its rugged western appearance and attracts tourists with wine tasting rooms and other merchants along its main street, to the heart of the old west, Fort Worth. At the stockyards, visitors can climb atop a longhorn for a photo op, watch the twice-daily cattle drives or catch a glimpse of the unabated wild west or visit one of the museums, including the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Stockyards Museum. And, of course, the Grapevine Vintage Railroad.
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The Interurban Railway Museum in Plano, Texas, was completed in 1908 by the Texas Electric Railway as its Plano station. The railway used the building until 1948, when it ceased operations, and it stood vacant until 1990, when the city of Plano renovated the building for use as the Interurban Railway Museum. The museum is home to Texas Electric Railway No. 360, a restored car. The Plano Conservancy for Historic Preservation has operated the museum since 2001.
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The night before he was assassinated, President John F. Kennedy stayed at the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth. The next morning, he gave an impromptu speech outside the hotel, just hours before he was killed. “There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” the president told a crowd gathered outside the hotel. In 2012, the JFK Tribute was unveiled in General Worth Square downtown, near the site of the former Hotel Texas, today a Hilton.
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According to VisitDallas.com, “Phillip Johnson, a Kennedy family friend, constructed this stark and simple memorial to the late president.” The memorial is located in the Dallas County Historical Plaza and near Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963.
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John Neely Bryan wore many hats. He was a Presbyterian farmer, lawyer and a tradesman. Perhaps more importantly, he founded Dallas, Texas. In 1841, he built a small log building. A reconstructed model of the edifice was later erected in Dallas County Historical Plaza in downtown Dallas.
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Also known as New Oak Cliff Cemetery, Laurel Land Memorial Park is famous as the final resting place for musician Stevie Ray Vaughan and J.D. Tippit, a Dallas police officer Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly killed after he allegedly killed President John F. Kennedy.
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The McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, was founded in 1983 to return streetcar service to Dallas. Today, it operates the 4.6-mile-long M-Line Trolley. Millions of Dallas residents, workers, businesses and visitors have taken the trolley since it first ran in July 1989.
Founded in 1962, the Museum of the American Railroad is a not-for-profit Texas corporation dedicated to celebrating the heritage and exploring the future of railroads through historic preservation, research and educational programming. The Museum moved to its current location in Frisco in 2012. The Museum collects artifacts and archival material from the railroad industry to exhibit and interpret their significance in American life and culture.
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Sometimes it feels like the history of Dallas centers on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Contrary to prevailing opinion, it does not. Any visitor to Dallas looking to explore more of the city’s history should begin at the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture near Dealey Plaza in the heart of downtown Dallas. The museum, located in the historic 1892 Dallas County Courthouse, explores the fascinating history of Dallas, how the city grew into the major metropolis it is today and some of the cultural conflicts along the way.
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“Peace Circle” interprets the 1843 meeting between Republic of Texas President Sam Houston and 10 American Indian chiefs and captains on the Grape Vine Prairie. The monument features 11 bronze statues standing 1.25 percent larger than life size. The Peace Circle meeting later led to the Treaty at Bird’s Fort signing on September 29, 1843.
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Pioneer Park Cemetery consists of graveyards containing the remains of several of the Dallas’ earliest founders, including mayors, business leaders and heroes of the Texas revolution. Located in the Dallas’ Convention Center District and east of Pioneer Plaza, the cemetery dates to the 1850s and remained in use until the 1920s.
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Created in 1994, Pioneer Plaza is the largest public open space in the Dallas central business district. The park is home to the Cattle Drive Through Dallas sculpture. The giant bronze sculpture commemorates (as its name suggests) a cattle drive through the city.
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The 561-foot-tall Reunion Tower is one of the recognizable landmarks in Dallas. Part of the Hyatt Regency Hotel complex, Reunion Tower is the 15th tallest building in Dallas and located about 1,000 feet from Dealey Plaza where President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963. Known locally as “The Ball,” the tower was completed on Feb. 2, 1978.
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The Ruth Paine House Museum opened on November 6, 2013. The city of Irving purchased Ruth Paine’s small suburban home in 2009 to preserve the home’s history surrounding the tragedy. Half a century later, the historic home was restored to its 1963 look and transformed into a multimedia museum to interpret what happened in November 1963. On November 21, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald went to the house for an overnight visit with his wife and kids, who had been living with Paine. This was unusual as Oswald usually visited on the weekends. Video images projected onto glass panes depict actors re-creating certain moments, such as when Paine was shocked to hear Marina tell a police officer that her husband owned a gun. Paine lived in the house until 1966 and now resides in California.
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Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park is famous as the final resting place of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who allegedly killed President John F. Kennedy. Oswald, 24 years old at the time of his death, ended up here because no other funeral home wanted his body. Within months of his burial, thousands of visitors stopped by his grave to catch a glimpse of the final resting place of the alleged presidential assassin.
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Originally opened in 1989, the museum, tells not only the story of Kennedy’s assassination and the aftermath of his death, but puts into context Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, which was in essence the first stop of his 1964 re-election campaign. The most powerful scene in the museum is arguably the reconstructed sniper’s perch. According to the Warren Commission, Oswald organized boxes containing schoolbooks into the perch; the museum based its reconstruction on photographs taken on Nov. 22, 1963.
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