Ford's Theatre
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| Address | 511 10th St, NW Washington, D.C. United States |
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| Owner | National Park Service |
| Operator | Ford's Theatre Society |
| Type | Regional theatre |
| Capacity | 665 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | August 1863 |
| Reopened | 1968, 2009 |
| Website | |
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Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
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| Coordinates | 38°53′48″N 77°1′33″W / 38.89667°N 77.02583°WCoordinates: 38°53′48″N 77°1′33″W / 38.89667°N 77.02583°W |
| Area | 0.29 acres (0.12 ha) (Theatre alone) less than one acre (entire NHS) |
| Built | 1863 |
| Architectural style | Late Victorian |
| Visitation | 856,079 (2005) |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000034 |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 2013 |
Ford's Theatre is a theatre in Washington, D.C., used for various stage performances beginning in the 1860s. It is also the site of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. After being shot, the mortally wounded president was carried across the street to the Petersen House, where he died the next morning.
The theatre was later used as a warehouse and office building, and in 1893 part of it collapsed, causing 22 deaths. It was renovated and re-opened as a theatre in 1968. During the 2000s, it was renovated again, opening on February 12, 2009, in commemoration of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. A related Center for Education and Leadership museum experience opened February 12, 2012 next to Petersen House.
The Petersen House and the theatre are preserved together as Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service; programming within the theatre and the Center for Education is overseen separately by the Ford's Theatre Society in a public-private partnership. Ford's Theatre is located at 511 10th Street, NW.
The site was originally a house of worship, constructed in 1833 as the second meeting house of the First Baptist Church of Washington, with Obadiah Bruen Brown as the pastor. In 1861, after the congregation moved to a newly built structure, John T. Ford bought the former church and renovated it into a theatre. He first called it Ford's Athenaeum. It was destroyed by fire in 1862, and was rebuilt the following year. When the new Ford's Theatre opened in August 1863, it had seating for 2,400 persons and was called a "magnificent new temple".
Just five days after General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Lincoln and his wife attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. The famous actor John Wilkes Booth, desperate to aid the dying Confederacy, stepped into the box where the presidential party was sitting and shot Lincoln. Booth then jumped onto the stage, and cried out "Sic semper tyrannis" (some heard "The South is avenged!") just before escaping through the back of the theatre.
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