While Ford's Theater was a fully functioning playhouse for many decades, it is best known as the site of United States President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. The theater, located in Washington, D.C., has undergone many incarnations as a theater, office space, warehouse, and again as a theater, as it is today. Ford's Theater is preserved as Ford's Theater National Historic site, along with the Petersen House across the street, where Abraham Lincoln died after being rushed from the theater.
Originally a Baptist church, Ford's Theater was born after John T. Ford bought the building in 1861 and renovated it into a theater space. The building eventually burned down and was renovated, and the space was well known as a wonderful place to see a theater production. Shortly after the assassination, the United States Government paid Ford $100,000 U.S. Dollars (USD) to take control of the theater so the building would not be used for public entertainment after the assassination.
Some of the details regarding the assassination are debated still, but the general course of events are undisputed. Shortly after the surrender of the Confederate Army, on 14 April 1865, Abraham Lincoln and his wife went to Ford's Theater to see a production of Our American Cousin. They sat in a theater box above the stage. Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth had been planning an attack not only on Lincoln, but also on Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. The larger plot failed, as Booth's conspirators were unsuccessful, but Booth managed to find his way into the president's box at Ford's Theater and shoot the president in the back of the head with a Derringer pistol.
President Lincoln was rushed from the theater and taken to the Petersen House across the street, which is also part of the Ford's Theater National Historic Site. Lincoln struggled through the night and died the next day in the Petersen House. For several decades after, the theater sat unused and falling into disrepair. The U.S. Government eventually began using the space as an office building for various departments of the government. After part of the building collapsed, killing several clerks, the building was used simply as a storage warehouse for several decades.
Several restoration efforts revived the theater, and during the early 2000s, another restoration of the space took place. The theater now houses performances again, and it also contains items pertaining to Lincoln's life and death, including Booth's pistol, Lincoln's coat, and the pillow on which Lincoln rested his head as he died.
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