Touring the Tippit Scene

[Charles Collins]

That's what people with no good evidence always say.

The article just says that it was the first theater with air conditioning but doesn't say when that was installed. I'm willing to take your word for the cooling tower, but can you point it out in the photo?

The article just says that it was the first theater with air conditioning but doesn't say when that was installed.

This is what Jerry provided in post #64 of this thread (ask him for more exact information about where this is from):

“The Texas was the first air conditioned theater in Dallas; the original equipment is still in place (long since updated) as of Jun 14, 2012.”

Dr Willis Carrier designed the first modern day air conditioning system in 1902. If I remember correctly from the Wikipedia article, the Texas Theater was built in the early thirties. Jerry’s quote implies (to me) that the air conditioning system was the original equipment installed when the theater was built. (If it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t be the original equipment.) By the sixties any theater that didn’t have air conditioning in Dallas Texas was way behind the times and most likely (don’t you love that word?) didn’t have many customers.

Edit: The theater in my hometown was built in 1935 with air conditioning included. Dallas, TX was much larger than my hometown back then. These are good reasons to believe that it is likely that the Texas Theater was built with air conditioning included also.

can you point it out in the photo?


Sure, if you look above the right side of the billboard with the little red wagon (more or less above the rear of the wagon), there is a parapet wall that appears to run east and west and hides the lower portion of the cooling tower. The upper portion of the tower is visible above the parapet wall.

[Charles Collins]

This is like pulling teeth.  There is no "relative strength" of purely hypothetical arguments.

I've lived in Austin for 36 years.

Is this supposed to somehow make your speculative argument more likely?

I personally don't, but it depends on who you want to believe.

Nothing.  We just don't know how often LHO went to movies in movie theaters.

First of all, you're projecting your dislike of summer heat onto somebody else.  Secondly, lots of things provide relief from summer heat.  This is like claiming that Oswald likely took swims in the Trinity River as a a welcome It was fearfully sultry and hot, and their only air-conditioning was an old kitchen fan. Lee went naked around the apartment a good deal of the time and sometimes spent the whole day lying on the sofa on his stomach, without a stitch on, reading a book. relief from the summer heat because he took baths at home.

Cite, please.

Cite, please.

Marina and Lee by Priscilla McMillan Johnson - Chapter 31

It was fearfully sultry and hot, and their only air-conditioning was an old kitchen fan. Lee went naked around the apartment a good deal of the time and sometimes spent the whole day lying on the sofa on his stomach, without a stitch on, reading a book.

[Jerry Freeman]

The article just says that it was the first theater with air conditioning but doesn't say when that was installed. I'm willing to take your word for the cooling tower, but can you point it out in the photo?

AC was installed when the theater was built. #Nearly 60 tons of it!#

The Texas’ developers spared no expense and *boasted that the theater was *“fireproof” – constructed entirely of concrete. The theatre was the first in the area built for talking pictures and it featured the second-largest Barton organ in Dallas. However, McHenry was most proud of the cooling and ventilation system which blew 200,000 cubic feet of air per minute through a water-cooled system pumped from a 4,000-gallon tank. The cooling system made “The Texas” the first theater in Dallas with air conditioning. Billionaire film producer and renowned aviator Howard Hughes and his business partner Harold B. Franklin, another Hollywood producer, briefly owned the Robb & Rowley movie theater chain in the early 30′s during construction and opening of the Texas Theatre.

John Brewer, the manager of the shoe store a few doors east of the theatre, had seen him loitering suspiciously outside his store and had noticed he matched the description being broadcast over the radio of the man who had shot local beat officer – and off-duty Texas @Theatre@ security guard – J. D. Tippit.

Another myth that will never subside.
 

* years later in 1995, it was nearly destroyed by a three-alarm fire

https://thetexastheatre.com/about/

See this link with several pictures for a really good view of the interior---
http://www.unvisiteddallas.com/archives/2217

Tippit did not work security there at the time of his death...I believe he worked security at Oak Cliff's Austin's Bar B Q then.
#The Armadillo World Headquarters [of music] in John's city of Austin blew that much AC way back when.
@People spelled theater ...theatre back then--don't know why.

[Joe Elliott]

The Texas’ developers spared no expense and *boasted that the theater was *“fireproof” –…

So that is why Oswald’s gun didn’t fire.

[Bill Chapman]

'Like pulling teeth'
'It ain't the heat, it's the humidity.

Can't stand clichès, myself.
Just not my cup of tea..
 

[Joe Elliott]

Bill, a most excellent tour despite Robert Groden’s attempt to disrupt it with all his horn honking.

[John Iacoletti]

I am not attempting to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. I am stating valid reasons to believe in the likelihood of LHO visiting the TT before 11/22/63. You can disagree if you so desire. But to state that there is no likelihood because everything is hypothetical is ridiculous.

No, it’s accurate. You need some basis for decreeing something to be more likely than not — beyond a “could have happened” hypothetical.

[John Iacoletti]

“The Texas was the first air conditioned theater in Dallas; the original equipment is still in place (long since updated) as of Jun 14, 2012.”

That just says that the originally installed equipment was still there. It doesn’t tell you when the original equipment was first installed.