Washington - Ford's Theatre National Historic Site

John Wilkes Boothe shot Abraham Lincoln in the balcony of Ford's Theater on April 14th, 1865. The former actor turned Confederate conspirator wanted to throw the country into political chaos. Lincoln was watching the play "Our American Cousin" when he was shot.

The building is now a national historic site with a museum, lecture hall and a theater which produces musicals and plays about family values, multiculturalism, and the varied character of American life.

The Petersen House, "the place where Lincoln died" sits across from the street from the theater.

Theater entrepreneur John T. Ford opened his first theater in 1861 but it burned down. He completed construction of the present structure in August, 1863. After Lincoln's assassination, the government bought the building and over the years used it as an office building and warehouse.

President Eisenhower signed the Congressional Act to found the museum in 1954. 14 years later, it opened with the production of "John Brown's Body".