What time did Lee Harvey Oswald leave the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963?
Executive summary
Most mainstream accounts place Lee Harvey Oswald inside the Texas School Book Depository up to about the time of the motorcade’s passage through Dealey Plaza at roughly 12:30 p.m.; eyewitness and official records then place him leaving the building within minutes afterward and boarding a bus/cab that took him toward his boarding house, with his arrest at the Texas Theatre about 1:50 p.m. [1] [2] [3]. The Warren Commission and National Archives materials say Oswald was on the sixth floor before the shooting and that he carried a long package into the Depository that morning [4].
1. What contemporaneous reports and mainstream histories say
Contemporary and authoritative summaries — History, Britannica and widely cited timelines — describe Kennedy’s motorcade passing the Texas School Book Depository at approximately 12:30 p.m.; those accounts say Oswald fired from a sixth‑floor window and was seen leaving the building soon after the shooting, then caught public transit and later a cab before being apprehended at the Texas Theatre at about 1:50 p.m. [1] [2] [3]. These sources do not single out a precise minute for when Oswald physically exited the Depository but place his departure in the immediate post‑shooting interval after 12:30 p.m. [1] [3].
2. What the Warren Commission and National Archives document
The Warren Commission’s report and the National Archives material establish the core elements used in later timelines: Oswald arrived with a long package, the rifle and a handmade paper bag linked to him were found on the sixth floor, and investigators concluded he was present on the sixth floor “approximately 35 minutes before the assassination” (reporting his presence in the building and linking physical evidence) [4]. Those official records focus on placement and forensic links rather than a definitive clock‑minute for his departure from the building [4].
3. Eyewitness notes and radio transcripts: near‑minute detail exists but varies
There are radio transcripts and employee/witness accounts compiled by Dallas Police and archived in repositories such as the Portal to Texas History; those materials include minute‑by‑minute traffic and witness notes from the President’s arrival through Oswald’s arrest, and they form the basis for many detailed reconstructions [5]. Secondary minute‑by‑minute reconstructions (Business Insider, timelines reproduced elsewhere) stitch those reports into a sequence in which Oswald is last seen in the Depository shortly before or immediately after 12:30 p.m., then leaves, rides a bus and a cab, and is arrested at 1:50 p.m. [3] [5].
4. Discrepancies, uncertainties and why people debate the exact minute
Some timelines and investigator transcripts record slightly different witness times (for example, an employee sighting around 11:45–11:50 a.m. appears in some compilations for other movements that day), and later commentators challenge or reinterpret the sequence; these discrepancies make pinning a single minute of exit difficult from existing public sources [6] [7]. The sources provided do not quote a single authoritative minute for Oswald’s exit from the Depository; rather they present a short window immediately after the 12:30 p.m. shooting [1] [3] [4].
5. How historians and journalists translate “left the Depository” into timelines
Journalists and historians typically translate the available evidence into a practical timeline: shooting at about 12:30 p.m.; Oswald leaving the sixth floor and the building in the minutes after the shooting; transit to his boarding house and then the Texas Theatre arrest at 1:50 p.m. This reconstruction is what sources such as History, Britannica and Business Insider present as the accepted sequence [1] [2] [3].
6. What the sources do not resolve or do not mention
Available sources do not mention a universally agreed, single minute timestamp for the moment Oswald stepped out of the Texas School Book Depository; they instead show a clustering of witness, radio, and forensic evidence that places his departure in the immediate aftermath of the 12:30 p.m. shooting and before his 1:50 p.m. arrest [1] [3] [5]. Claims that assert a precise minute beyond that window are not supported by the provided materials.
7. Bottom line for readers and researchers
If you need a concise answer from current mainstream documentation: Oswald was in the Depository at the time of the shooting at about 12:30 p.m.; he left the building in the minutes following that event and was later arrested at the Texas Theatre around 1:50 p.m. The archival radio transcripts and Warren Commission materials underpin this sequence but do not pin a single definitive exit minute in the sources provided [1] [4] [5] [3].