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'Countless individuals have noted that the President's death affected them even more deeply than the death of their own parents. The reason, I believe, is that the latter situation most often represented a loss of the past - while the assassination of President Kennedy represented an incalculable loss of the future.' Ted Sorenson, 1963 |
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Dealey Plaza, a triangular intersection of three of the city's three principal arteries - Commerce, Main, and Elm, is perhaps the most historic site in Dallas. It was here in 1841, on a bluff overlooking the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, that city founder John Neely Bryan first established a trading post and of course also here, on November 22, 1963, that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  The modern plaza did not exist until 1932, when the Elm Fork of the Trinity River was moved behind two massive levees to protect against flooding.
At that time, the bluff was leveled and the so-called "Triple Underpass" was built, a railroad bridge beneath which Commerce Street,
Main Street, and Elm Street pass.
Dealey Plaza is named in honour of George Bannerman Dealey a longtime Dallas Morning News editor, whose
bronze likeness faces Houston Street and the old county courthouse. Dealey, an Englishman, came to Texas in 1874 before, in 1885, being sent to North Texas to open a branch office. Under Dealey's watchful eye, The Dallas Morning Newsbegan publication on October 1, 1885. By the time of his death in 1946, both the venerable editor, who had become a respected community leader. |
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