How Dallas acquired an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and where it is

By Sarah Bahari
https://www.dallasnews.com

A sacred piece of American history is tucked into the seventh floor of the downtown Dallas Public Library.

One of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence rests behind a glass display case at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library. It is the only known copy west of the Mississippi River.

But how, exactly, did Dallas acquire the prized document?

On the evening of July 4, 1776, printer John Dunlap produced an estimated 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence from his Philadelphia shop. Over the following years, most copies were lost; in fact, just 26 known copies exist today.

In 1968, one copy was discovered in a backroom box of the shuttered Leary’s Book Store in Philadelphia. That print may have languished in storage for more than a century, according to the Dallas Public Library. Because of that, it is often called the “lost copy.”

Soon after it was found, the document was auctioned for more than $400,000, according to a 2014 report by KERA. The highest bidders were a pair of Dallas executives, Joseph Driscoll and Ira Corn, Jr.

In 1982, with the help of 15 additional donors, the city of Dallas acquired the document, which was first displayed at Dallas City Hall before moving to its home at the library, KERA reported.

“It is not going to perish. It’s going to be around. And it’s free,” Dallas’ former city manager George Schrader told KERA.

“And it brings to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access an enormous amount of information and services,” Schrader said of the library. “It is, and maybe this is something that I want it to be, it’s the corporate memory of this community.”

On its website, the library thanks the Friends of the Dallas Public Library for its permanent display.

“This is the fundamental legal document that established the United States of America,” the library wrote. “As such, its importance cannot be overemphasized.”

What does the Declaration of Independence say?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Excerpt from the National Archives.

This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.