There was a little a bit of Dallas history for sale on the Internet.
For $15,000 – and the price of hauling it off – in 2006, you could buy what might just have been the last remaining piece of a failed investment from the long-closed portfolio of Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who gunned down President John F. Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on Nov. 24, 1963.
The Northwest Log Cabins resort concept looked like a winner to Ruby back in the 1950s. A promotional flier with map touted the log cabins on a spring-fed, privately stocked lake, just a stone's throw from the newly formed Grapevine Lake, "nested in beautiful growths of ash and oak trees – a restful retreat from today's tension."
The original price for pond-front land and cabin? $9,850.
In 2005, the Tarrant Appraisal District valued the improvements on the property at $27,850. But Ron St. Angelo hoped to sell the cabin alone for just over half that.
He and his wife built a three-story home on the lot adjacent to the cabin. In 1998, they acquired the cabin property and rented it out until recently, when they decided to put in gardens.
"We're really needing the space more than the property," Mr. St. Angelo said.
The Ruby cabin combined mid-century modern design lines with rustic log charm. Mr. St. Angelo, a longtime photographer for the Dallas Cowboys, could think of all kinds of reasons some history buff might want to snap it up.
"If it was set in the right place, it would be a good destination for someone. It would be really cool to turn it into a little B&B or a restaurant or a museum for some of the area's notorious characters," he said, pointing out that Bonnie and Clyde killed two highway patrolmen nearby on State Highway 114 back in their coldblooded heyday.
While the idea of a Conspiracy Café might sound a bit macabre, there were a lot of inquiries about the property, which Mr. St. Angelo billed as the Jack Ruby Log Cabin on craigslist .com.
"A lot of people want to know the back story," he said. "It's a neat little spot. We've authenticated it through the FBI. My nephew's absolutely convinced that when we take it down, we're going to find the key to JFK's assassination."
David Klempin is the historic preservation officer for the city of Grapevine. He looked at the former Ruby investment as a possible target for historic preservation, but the city had its hands full with current projects, including the 1869 Nash Farmstead.
Saving the last surviving building of the Northwest Log Cabins development from the 1950s would mean finding a spot for it on pricey historic downtown real estate.
"It doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile thing, but it has to be pretty darn important to rally around it," Mr. Klempin said. "It's a pretty building, but because of the way it's built on a slab, it's going to be hard to get out of there."
There was substantial documentation on a neighboring cabin once owned by the late Stanley Kaufman. He was Jack Ruby's civil attorney and one of the last people Ruby called in the days before the killing.
Together with his father-in-law and law partner, Harold Oster, Mr. Kaufman purchased the cabin on the Placid Peninsula at 2816 Dove Pond Drive through Ruby in May 1961, just as the flamboyant Ruby's tax problems were beginning to escalate.
Mr. Kaufman's widow, Sondra, sold that cabin in 1998 to a neighbor, who tore it down.
Ms. Kaufman remembered the cabin – and Ruby – very well.
"He had this one cabin left, and he said to my husband, 'I want to get rid of it.' My husband came home and said, 'Now we own a cabin, honey,' " she remembered.
"We knew Jack personally, too, and sometimes he would come over to the house. Jack was kind of an erratic fellow, but he would do anything for people he loved," she said.
Gary Mack is curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. He described the cabins as one of many failed business ventures Ruby was involved in.
"At the time he shot Oswald, he owed the IRS over $40,000, which is equivalent today to about $244,000. Ruby was quite a character – every city's got a guy like him," Mr. Mack said.
The Northwest Log Cabins development pops up several times in the extensive paper trail created after Ruby shot Oswald. The FBI combed every aspect of Ruby's life, looking for clues and possible conspiracies.
Mr. St. Angelo believed his cabin was the first built in the development. An exhibit from the Warren Commission report states that Ruby and his partner "would occasionally come down and help nail the logs up or do other manual labor, which both seemed to enjoy."
Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, Ruby died in jail in 1967, leaving still more questions unanswered.
"One of the reasons there are so many questions is he killed the guy who may have had the answers," Mr. Mack said.
While Mr. Mack couldn't comment on the value of Mr. St. Angelo's cabin on Red Bird Lane for potential conflict of interest reasons, he recognized the interest the property might hold for history buffs.
"There are Kennedy collectors out there that will collect most anything," he said.
-- This article by J. Louise Larson originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News. See the original story here.
