Woke to heavy clouds and 65 degrees and breezy. First thing this morning, I had to drive over to the town admin offices to pay for my campsite last night in their nice town campground. Turning onto Main Street, I see these giant oil derricks behind the stores on Main Street, all topped with stars that light up - I meant to ask if the stars were just for Christmas or all year round. Kilgore was the train town that boomed when the east Texas oilfield was discovered in 1930, similar to the gold rush towns. The derricks represent the past and present of the area.
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| Main Street, Kilgore, Texas |
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| Old time Theater in Kilgore, Texas |
I drove a few miles to Kilgore college to explore the East Texas Oil Museum. Just outside the entrance is an oil derrick and inside is one of the best museums I have ever seen. They had interactive exhibits showing the technology of drilling for oil then and now, including fracking for gas, as well as the history of the local oil discovery and its impacts on the town. They recreated Main Street from 1930 inside the museum with shops and stores and told the story of "Dad" Joiner who discovered the first well that led to the boom. The East Texas Oilfield was the largest oil deposits ever found in 1930 and so much oil was pumped that oil prices plummeted from $1.10 a barrel to $0.15. T with his was probably the only place in America that was not suffering from the depression. This museum is an absolutely must see if ever in Northeast Texas.
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| Recreated 1930 Main Street in the Museum |
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| These marionettes were viewed from an "elevator" that took you down through 3,000 feet of rock to see the oil. Great for kids, but I enjoyed it, too. |
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| More 1930's Main Street, inside the Museum |
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| Changing/Adding Pipes to a drill |
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| For Jack - the Kilgore 1930 bank vault is on the left. |
Back on I-20, I drove into downtown Dallas to see if I could visit the Sixth Floor Museum about JFK's assassination in 1963 and his legacy. Worried about finding parking, I luckily found a surface parking lot that only charged me for 2 spots, so $14 and just a minute's walk from the museum. Absolutely no photography in the museum, but it was a traditional gallery with lots of photos and some videos with an audio cassette that provided background. I saw the actual room set up with the Oswald's rifle sniper's "nest" the exact way the FBI found it with boxes assembled to provide a resting area as he shot through the window into the back of the cavalcade. They spent a lot of time on the evidence for Oswald's guilt as well as alternative theories. A few tissues were needed to get through the video clips of the funeral and then the museum focused on Kennedy's legacy of holding off Russian nuclear weapons in Cuba, civil rights, and the Peace Corps, etc.
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| The book depository and sixth floor corner window (square, next to highest floor) where Oswald hid. |
After the museum I walked over the JFK memorial by Philip Johnsons, designed as an "open tomb." Walking back to the parking lot, I stopped to visit the "grassy knoll" where some folks thought at least one shot had originated that supported many of the conspiracy theories, but today they think it was just the tall buildings that distorted the sounds depending upon where you were standing. A very worthwhile stop.
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| JFK Memorial |
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| The grassy knoll today |
I hit terrible traffic leaving Dallas and again in Fort Worth, so did not get to my campground southwest of Ft. Worth till after sunset, but luckily not totally dark. A great spot on a lake by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Whew, what a great day!
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