1961

n.d.: Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (now UTD) founded in Richardson.

Summer: Richardson's first "skyscraper," the First Bank and Trust Building, is erected at Central Expressway and Spring Valley Road.

Oct. 25: The Richardson Echo reports that the Ritz Theatre has been remodeled and renamed the Electra Theatre.

1962

June: Collins Radio erects a 60-foot-wide parabolic radio antenna that's used during the early years of NASA's manned space program to communicate with American astronauts.

1963

March 10: U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough speaks at dedication ceremony of new Richardson Post Office at corner of Lockwood and Custer Road.

1964

Feb. 29: Marina Oswald, widow of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, becomes a Richardson resident.

May 30: Future President George H. W. Bush, campaigning for Congress, speaks at a "Push Bush" rally in Heights Park.

Sept. 1: Mark Twain Elementary opens for classes for the first time.

Oct. 31: U.S. Post Office substation opens in the Arapaho Camera & Jewelry shop in Arapaho Village shopping center.

1965

March 26: Marina Oswald buys a home in Cottonwood Park section of Richardson.

Sept. 7: RISD schools are officially desegregated, with Mark Twain Elementary receiving four African-American students.

December: Third contract post office opens in Richardson Paint Center, No. 6 Richardson Terrace.

1966

n.d.: Huffhines Park is born when the City of Richardson purchases 50 plus acres of former farm land from Neely and Frankie Huffhines, for whom the new park is named.

November: Low-budget science fiction film, "Mars Needs Women," is filmed in Dallas and also partly on the Collins Radio campus near the Mark Twain Neighborhood.

1967

n.d.: Graduate Research Center of the Southwest renamed Southwest Center for Advanced Studies.

May: Marina Oswald and second husband, Richardson resident Ken Porter, move from Richardson to Dallas.

1968

July 19: The Santa Fe "Texas Chief" rumbles through Richardson for the last time.

1969

February: Construction begins on new $1.7 million public library.

Sept. 1: Southwest Center for Advanced Studies becomes the University of Texas at Dallas (even though it is actually in Richardson).