While Thursday is the official birthday complete with balloons and flowers for the sparky old Bulb, the display is always on and always available Monday through Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM in the Musuem. Everyone is welcome to come bask in the glow.
The Museum also is displaying a special 30th anniversary exhibit provided by the Hip Pocket Theater celebrating their years of entertaining Fort Worth. There are some great memories here for local theater goers.
Many Forum members have commented on XTO's total rebuilding of the historic and beautiful Swift & Co. building which will be used as offices for one of their producing groups. If you haven't been out to see the work being done on the Swift building, you're missing a chance to see some really devoted preservation at work.
Incidentally, the Stockyards Musuem has a very large collection of and is a repository for much of the old Swift and Armour local archives as well as the archives for the Fort Worth Stockyards Company. The Museum has recently added and furnished additional space for researchers and historians including a wireless Internet hotspot. This new space may also be used by pre-arrangement for small meetings during Museum hours.
Fort Worth, TX (SPECIAL) – Visitors can still say “I saw the light at the Stockyards Museum!”
The famous Palace light bulb, a Fort Worth celebrity, hangs onto its reputation as it prepares to celebrate its 98th birthday on Thursday, September 21, 2006. The Stockyards Museum, operated by the North Fort Worth Historical Society, keeps this gem of a bulb on display inside the Livestock Exchange Building.
As it edges closer to 100, this amazing light bulb gets more and more attention. News services around the world picked up the 96th birthday celebration, giving the bulb a burst of fame that would have made electrician Barry Burke proud. It was his hand that in 1908 installed the little bulb above the backstage door at what became the Palace Theater on Fort Worth’s “theater row” downtown. It helped light the way for big-name movie stars attending premieres at the showplace that was the Palace.
George Dato owned the property where the Palace stood and in 1977, after the marquee lights along the row had dimmed, he wanted to save the bulb that had become a Fort Worth institution. He placed it in the Stockyards Museum in 1991, where it amazes visitors from all over. Experts have speculated that it is a GEM filament bulb (GE Metalized), but no one is willing to unscrew it for closer inspection!
The Stockyards Museum is located at 131 East Exchange Ave., Suite 113, in the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District, and is open Monday through Saturday from 10 to 5.
For more information, call 817-625-5082.