Dallas sites tied to JFK's killing still resonate

A 1930s-era movie theater. A county hospital. An old brick rooming house. A bustling airport. Sites associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 are scattered throughout Dallas and beyond. "These were just ordinary places — an airport, a hospital, a movie theater, a house, city streets — that were all of a sudden, literally in a blink of an eye, catapulted into this national spotlight," said Mark Doty, historic preservation officer for the city. As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the murder, the places connected to Kennedy's final hours — and to his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald — still resonate. "I like to think of it as ordinary places with extraordinary stories," said city archivist John Slate. "People really want to walk history, touch history, see history. Good history or bad, people want to see it. That's why walking down 10th and Patton streets (where Oswald shot a police officer) is a way of getting close to history, even though the landscape has completely changed," said Slate.