November 22, 1963 in the Austin American-Statesman

The other day Steve B. dug into his archives and unearthed a copy of the Austin American-Statesman printed on November 22, 1963. This edition went to press “just minutes before the tragic news came from Dallas” of President Kennedy’s death. The upper right hand corner indicates that this is the “Home Edition”, which came out in the afternoon. The Statesman also published a morning edition.

Page 27 offers an eerie slice of time. It’s full of pictures of the President and First Lady on what was a typical Presidential visit, detailing their plans to arrive at Bergstrom Forward Operating Base, visit LBJ’s ranch, attend a “$100 a plate ‘Texas Welcome Dinner'” and commenting that this was Mrs. Kennedy’s first visit to Texas.

You can click the images to get a closer look and read a bit of the text:

The following morning’s edition of the paper was printed with a black band around it.

For those of us born in the decades following the assassination, for whom President Kennedy has always been a figure of tragedy and legend, this was a unique opportunity to meet him in context, shaking hands and making statements about a Saturn booster rocket the US would soon test in its race against Russia. It was also a reminder of the benefits of print as record. This wasn’t a single article archived or printed off a screen, this was a capsule of 1963, from advertisements to politics to local news and cultural dynamics. We went shoe shopping on its pages for under ten dollars. We even found Steve B. (top left):

Glad he hung on to the paper.