The site was originally owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas. During the 1880s, French native Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop here. In 1894, Phil L. Mitchell, president and director of Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois, purchased the land. Four years later, an office building for the firm’s Texas division, known as the Southern Rock Island Plow Company, was completed here. In 1901, the five-story structure was destroyed by fire. That same year, under the supervision of the company’s vice president and general manager F.B. Jones, work was completed on the present structure. Built to resemble the earlier edifice, it features characteristics of the Commercial Romanesque Revival style. In 1937, the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property. Later, under the direction of D.H. Byrd, the building was leased to a variety of businesses, including the Texas School Book Depository. On November 22, 1963, the building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth-floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site.