A Guide to the History of Dallas, Texas

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Timelines of Events in Dallas History: 1960s

1960

n.d.: Dallas now has two professional football teams: The Dallas Texans (AFL) and the Dallas Cowboys (NFL).

n.d.: Fair Park public swimming pool demolished.

September 12: Republican presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon visits Dallas; following a downtown parade, Nixon gives speech at Memorial Auditorium.

September 13: Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and running mate Lyndon B. Johnson visit Dallas; following a downtown parade, Kennedy gives speech at Memorial Auditorium.

October: Former President Harry S. Truman makes a brief stopover in Dallas.

Nov. 4: Vice-President candidate Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife jeered by pro-Nixon crowd at Adolphus Hotel.

1961

n.d.: Graduate Research Center (future UTD) is chartered.

n.d.: Sarah T. Hughes becomes first female federal judge in North Texas.

n.d.: As the result of a lawsuit brought by a private citizen (whose lawyer was future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall), the Dallas Independent School District is ordered by a federal court to institute "stair-step" racial integration of schools (i.e., one grade each year until all 12 grades are desegregated).

September: Motion picture "State Fair," starring Pat Boone, Ann Margaret, and Tom Ewell, filmed on grounds just prior to State Fair opening.

Fall: Vice-President and future President Lyndon B. Johnson acts as State Fair tour guide for Pakistani camel driver.

October 9: President Kennedy makes a second trip to Dallas (the first since assuming the presidency), to visit ailing Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn at Baylor Hospital. After Air Force One lands at Love Field, JFK is taken straight to see Rayburn. President departs immediately afterward.

Oct. 13: Former President Harry S. Truman visits ailing Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn at Baylor University Medical Center.

November 14: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy visits Dallas, where he addresses the Associated Press Managing Editors Conference at the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel. In his speech, RFK praises Dallas for its peaceful progress in desegregating public schools.

1962

n.d.: Construction of underground Civil Defense Headquarters fallout shelter beneath Science and Health Museum completed.

1963

n.d.: Dallas public parks and swimming pools are de-segregated.

January 4: Black Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks at poll tax rally at Fair Park's Music Hall.

Oct. 24: U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson spat upon and struck over the head with a picket sign outside Memorial Auditorium.

Nov. 22: President John F. Kennedy assassinated while riding in a motorcade in downtown Dallas. Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit shot and killed by alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who is arrested at Texas Theater on Jefferson Blvd. in Oak Cliff. Lyndon B. Johnson sworn into office as President aboard Air Force One at Love Field by Judge Sarah Hughes.

Nov. 24: While being transferred to county jail, Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Municipal Building on Harwood Street. Oswald is taken to Parkland Hospital, where he dies.

Nov. 25: On the same day as President Kennedy's funeral in Washington, D.C., Lee Harvey Oswald is buried at Fort Worth's Rose Hill Cemetery.

1964

n.d.: White Rock pump station closes.

n.d.: Texas Instruments manufactures first hand-held calculator.

March 4-15: Jack Ruby, accused killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, on trial at Criminal Courts Building. Found guilty, Ruby is sentenced to death.

Summer: An explosive device of some kind wrecks a restroom at an Oak Cliff Dairy Queen; teenage vandals suspected.

Sept. 18: The Beatles perform at Memorial Auditorium in their first and only Dallas appearance.

1965

n.d.: Causeway built, connecting Mockingbird Lane and Peavey Road, on White Rock Lake's northern shore.

n.d.: Construction begins on Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway (I-635).

March: Dallas City Council passes "Jolly John law," providing a $200 fine for loitering, using offensive language, etc. at drive-in restaurants. This is in response to a series of incidents involving teenagers, which have occurred at Jolly John's hamburger stand (later renamed Dog 'n' Suds) in Far North Dallas (NW corner of Marsh and Forest).

Spring: Skateboard craze hits Dallas; teenage skateboarders seen everywhere.

Summer: Northpark Shopping Mall opens at intersection of Hwy. 75-Central Expressway and Northwest Hwy.

Sept. 1: A Federal Court orders DISD to integrate 12th grade immediately.

Sept. 7: Teenage dance show "Sumpn' Else," featuring KLIP radio DJ Ron Chapman, debuts on WFAA-TV; televised live from remote studio at Northpark Shopping Mall.

1966

n.d.: Dallas Heritage Society saves old Millermore mansion from destruction.

March 17: Black Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks at SMU's McFarlin Auditorium and Dallas Pastors Association meeting at Melrose Hotel.

Fall: El Centro, housed in the old Sanger-Harris department store building, becomes the first campus of the newly formed Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD).

Sept. 25: Black Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks at international convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) at Memorial Auditorium.

1967

n.d.: Lee Park and Stone Place Mall in downtown Dallas become gathering places for local hippies.

Jan. 3: While his sentence is under appeal, Jack Ruby dies of blood clot and cancer at Parkland Memorial Hospital - the same institution at which President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald died. Ruby's body is taken to Chicago for burial.

1968

April 11-13: Flower Fair '68, a teenage festival, is held at Market Hall.

1969

n.d.: Last private passenger train leaves Union Station.

Aug. 30-Sept. 1: Texas International Pop Festival, attended by thousands of Dallas youths, held at nearby Lewisville. Many of the same musicians who played two weeks earlier at Woodstock are featured.

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