Irving's Department of Arts and Culture oversees the Irving Arts Center, the city's historical archives and the city's museums:
Irving Archives and Museum (IAM) is the central hub of Irving’s museums collection, housing the city archive, a permanent exhibit telling the story of Irving, and temporary exhibition space along with an auditorium and a Smithsonian Spark!Lab where children between the ages of 6 and 12 create, collaborate, explore, test, experiment, and invent.
Irving Archives allows the discovery of Irving’s history through access to primary documents, historic photographs, maps, films, ephemera and oral histories.
The Bear Creek community in west Irving is one of the oldest African-American communities in Dallas County. During the late 1850s, a mix of free blacks, whites and their slaves began settling along the upper reaches of Bear Creek. After emancipation, former slaves began moving into the area, which developed into a rural African-American enclave during the era of racial segregation.
The three museums that comprise the Jackie Townsell Bear Creek Heritage Center tell the history of the Bear Creek community and of the African-American experience from the time of emancipation of the slaves through the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Learn more ...
Ruth Paine's house is where alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald spent the night before shots rang out at Dallas' Dealey Plaza ― claiming the life of President Kennedy. The story of the events surrounding the assassination has engrossed historians, scholars and everyday Americans for decades.
In 2009, the City of Irving purchased the Ruth Paine House to preserve its historical integrity; in 2013, it created a museum within so that visitors can have a rare encounter with history. Learn more ...
The Mustangs of Las Colinas is a breathtakingly realistic bronze sculpture of nine wild mustangs galloping across a granite stream. Tourists from around the world come to view the impressive, larger-than-life depiction that serves as the centerpiece of Williams Square, a stark, pink granite plaza in the Las Colinas Urban Center. Learn more ...