On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy arrived at Dallas' Love Field from Fort Worth at 11:37 in the morning. He was accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and Texas governor and Mrs. John Connally. They were in Dallas as part of a tour for the 1964 Presidential campaign. The motorcade left Love Field and passed through downtown Dallas on Main Street, then turned north onto Houston Street (moving against the normal direction of traffic--the street had been blocked off) for one block. From Houston Street, the motorcade turned left onto Elm Street and moved towards the triple underpass. The entourage was on its way to the Trade Mart north of the central business district for a sold-out luncheon. At 12:30, as the open limousine carrying the Kennedys and the Connallys moved west on Elm past Dealey Plaza, shots rang out. They were fired at the motorcade on Elm Street, starting just past the oak tree on the north side of Elm and stopping before the limousine reached the second lamp post on the north side of the street. Both the President and the Governor were wounded. The limousine picked up speed and raced to the Parkland Hospital Emergency Room where Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00.
Police at Dealey questioned eye witnesses and immediately began searching the Texas School Book Depository, a textbook distribution facility facing Dealey Plaza at 411 Elm. They also searched the rail yard in back of the pergola on Dealey Plaza, and a fenced area north of Elm and west of the Depository later known as the grassy knoll (the grassy knoll is on the north side of Elm Street between the parking lots for the former School Book Depository and triple underpass, in front of and to the west of the Bryan Colonnade). No evidence was found. At 1:12, after a search of the School Book Depository, police discovered a barricade of boxes, three spent bullet cartridges, and a paper bag in the southeast corner window area on the sixth floor. Ten minutes later, they found a rifle betweeen boxes near the six floor staircase. This evidence, along with finger and palm prints on some of the boxes, was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, an order clerk who had begun work at the depository October 15, 1963.
