WHO WAS
JACK RUBY?
A Dallas nightclub owner. A convicted murderer.
One of the most controversial characters in American history.
Jack Ruby was complicated.
That's kind of the point.
JACK RUBY BEFORE HE WAS INFAMOUS
Jack Ruby was a Dallas nightclub owner long before he became one of the most infamous figures in American history.
Born Jacob Leon Rubenstein in Chicago in 1911, Ruby grew up in a troubled working-class family, spent part of his childhood in foster care, and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1947, he moved to Dallas, where his sister Eva was involved in operating a nightclub. Ruby soon found his place in the city's nightlife business.
Over the years, he operated or had interests in several Dallas clubs, including the Silver Spur, the Vegas Club, and, most famously, the Carousel Club, a downtown nightclub featuring burlesque dancers and other live entertainment.
Ruby was not an anonymous businessman.
He was a character.
A real character.
Even by nightclub-owner standards.
He was known around Dallas clubs, restaurants, newspaper offices, and police headquarters. He befriended performers, bought meals and drinks for acquaintances, handed out passes to his clubs, and cultivated friendships with police officers. He could be generous and sentimental one moment and hot-tempered the next. People who knew him described a man who desperately wanted to be liked, but who was also capable of arguments, fights, and sudden bursts of anger.
His acquaintances ranged across Dallas life — from entertainers and reporters to police officers, gamblers, and people with connections to the criminal underworld.
Ruby knew a lot of people. Some of them were even the kind you'd admit to knowing.
But to most people, none of that really mattered. Yet.
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
Shortly after noon on Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy's motorcade entered Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.
Ruby closed his clubs after the assassination.
Over the next two days, he drifted in and out of the activity surrounding police headquarters, where his familiarity with local reporters and police officers made his presence seem less unusual than it would in retrospect. He brought sandwiches to reporters. He attended a police press conference. He talked about Kennedy and the effect the assassination was having on the city.
Shots were fired.
Kennedy was hit.
The President was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead at 1 p.m. Texas Governor John Connally, who had been riding in the presidential limousine, was seriously wounded.
Within hours, Dallas police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. He was accused of assassinating President Kennedy and of killing Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit, whom he encountered in Oak Cliff later in the afternoon.
The assassination transformed Dallas overnight. Reporters descended on the city from around the world. Police headquarters filled with journalists, photographers, and television crews. Crowds gathered outside. Rumors spread more quickly than facts.
Jack Ruby, like most Dallas residents, was consumed by what had happened.
Then came Sunday morning.
NOVEMBER 24, 1963
JACK RUBY KILLS LEE HARVEY OSWALD
Dallas police planned to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald from the city jail to the Dallas County jail on Sunday, November 24.
That morning, Ruby drove downtown.
At 11:16 a.m., shortly before Oswald's planned transfer, Ruby stopped at a Western Union office on Main Street to send $25 to one of his nightclub employees.
A few minutes later, Ruby was inside the basement of Dallas police headquarters.
At 11:21 a.m., just five minutes after Ruby had verifiably been at the Western Union office, officers brought Oswald into the basement. Reporters and photographers crowded around as television cameras broadcast the transfer.
Ruby stepped out from the crowd. Holding a .38-caliber revolver, he moved toward Oswald and fired once into his abdomen.
The entire encounter lasted only seconds.
Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital — the same hospital where President Kennedy had died two days earlier. Oswald died that afternoon.
Millions of television viewers witnessed the shooting, either live or in broadcasts that followed almost immediately.
In a single moment, Jack Ruby went from being a locally known Dallas nightclub operator to one of the most recognizable men in America. And one of the greatest unanswered questions surrounding the Kennedy assassination was born:
Why did he do it? And why does it remain a mystery?
THE TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND DEATH OF JACK RUBY
Ruby was charged with murdering Lee Harvey Oswald.
His defense attorneys argued that the shooting had not been a calculated act of murder. Ruby's emotional state and mental condition became central issues in the case. Prosecutors argued that he had deliberately killed Oswald.
In March 1964, a Dallas jury found Jack Ruby guilty of murder with malice and sentenced him to death.
The verdict did not end the case.
Ruby's attorneys appealed, arguing among other things that the extraordinary publicity surrounding the assassination and Oswald's killing had made a fair trial in Dallas impossible.
In October 1966, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Ruby's conviction.
The court ruled that his trial should not have been held in Dallas and also found error in the admission of testimony concerning statements Ruby made after his arrest.
A new trial was ordered and was expected to take place outside Dallas.
It never happened.
Ruby became seriously ill while still in custody. Doctors discovered that he had cancer. On January 3, 1967, Jack Ruby died at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
He was 55 years old.
Because his conviction had been overturned and he died before he could be tried again, the second trial that might have revisited his actions and motives never took place.
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The second trial never happened. The questions never stopped.
SO WHY DID JACK RUBY KILL LEE HARVEY OSWALD?
That question has followed the Kennedy assassination for more than sixty years.
Ruby maintained that he had acted out of grief and outrage over President Kennedy's death. He spoke of wanting to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the ordeal of returning to Dallas for Oswald's trial. People who knew Ruby described him as deeply emotional about the assassination.
There were also circumstances that supported the possibility of an impulsive act.
Only minutes before shooting Oswald, Ruby was at Western Union sending money to one of his employees. The transfer of Oswald had been delayed that morning, and Ruby arrived in the police basement only shortly before Oswald appeared. The Warren Commission concluded that Ruby entered the basement without assistance and found no persuasive evidence that he and Oswald had known one another or that Ruby had been part of a conspiracy to kill him.
But questions remained.
They still do. This is Dallas. We haven't exactly been known for letting this particular subject go.
Ruby's familiarity with Dallas police officers, his ability to enter police headquarters during that chaotic weekend, and his associations with people connected to gambling and organized crime inevitably drew suspicion. Killing Oswald also ensured that the man accused of assassinating Kennedy would never stand trial, creating a vacuum that speculation and conspiracy theories quickly filled.
The Warren Commission investigated those questions and concluded in 1964 that there was no evidence that Ruby's killing of Oswald was part of a conspiracy.
More than a decade later, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations took another look.
The committee was more critical of the original investigation into Ruby's underworld associations. It identified contacts and relationships that it believed had not been adequately investigated by the FBI and the Warren Commission. At the same time, the committee did not conclude that Ruby himself was a member of organized crime.
The competing evidence has helped keep the argument alive ever since.
Was Ruby simply an impulsive, emotional, and volatile nightclub owner who found himself in the right (or wrong) place at an extraordinary moment?
Did he intend to kill Oswald before arriving at police headquarters that morning?
Were his relationships with police officers and underworld figures merely the natural connections of a man who spent his life running Dallas nightclubs, or evidence of something more consequential?
Investigations, books, documentaries, and generations of researchers have argued over those questions.
No second trial ever forced those questions to be tested before another jury.
If everyone who claimed to know his motives would just agree with one another, this page would be much shorter.
Whatever one believes about Jack Ruby's motives, the basic facts of his story are remarkable enough without embellishment.
He was a Chicago kid who came to Texas and became a Dallas nightclub operator. He was a familiar character in the city's nightlife: gregarious, temperamental, generous, difficult, and seemingly always in the middle of something.
Then, during one extraordinary weekend in November 1963, history arrived in Dallas.
Two days after the assassination of an American president, Ruby walked into the basement of police headquarters and shot the man accused of killing him.
One bullet changed Ruby's life, altered the course of the investigation, and ensured that questions surrounding the Kennedy assassination would persist for generations.
More than six decades later, people still argue about Jack Ruby — who he knew, what he intended, and why he did what he did.
Perhaps that is part of the reason his name remains so inseparable from Dallas.
Jack Ruby's Saloon & Grill sits in Dallas' historic West End, just a few blocks from Dealey Plaza and the former Texas School Book Depository. The streets around us are the same streets where much of this history unfolded.
As for what really happened, we serve whiskey, not answers.
We didn't name the place after Jack Ruby because his story was simple.
We named it after him because it wasn't.
HE IS THE MAN BEHIND OUR NAME
Come have a drink.
The history is already here.
WANT TO GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE?
The history of Jack Ruby has been examined, argued over, and reexamined for more than sixty years. For those interested in the records behind this page (and in drawing their own conclusions), these are good places to start. Click on any Source Title to read the original materials.
The Warren Commission Report
Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 1964
The original federal investigation, including extensive material on Ruby's background, movements, relationships, and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald.
National Archives — Warren Commission Report
Jack Ruby: Background and Biography
Warren Commission Report, Appendix XVI
A detailed account of Ruby's childhood, military service, move to Dallas, nightclub businesses, personality and relationships.
National Archives — Biography of Jack Ruby
Detention and Death of Lee Harvey Oswald
Warren Commission Report, Chapter V
The Commission's reconstruction of Oswald's detention and planned transfer, including Ruby's Western Union visit, entry into the police basement, and the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Oswald.
Investigation of Possible Conspiracy
Warren Commission Report, Chapter VI
The Commission's examination of Ruby's relationships, possible organized-crime connections and whether the killing of Oswald was part of a conspiracy.
National Archives — Chapter VI
House Select Committee on Assassinations
Final Report, 1979
Congress's later reexamination of the Kennedy assassination, including a more critical look at Ruby's associations and aspects of the original investigation.
National Archives — HSCA Records