Existing comment:
Ford's Theatre Box Door:
Inner door to the presidential box at Ford's Theatre.
For many years, the story persisted that Booth drilled a hole in the door. However, in 1962 theatre manager John Ford's nephew, reiterating what his uncle had written after the assassination, came forward:
"John Wilkes Booth did not bore the hole in the door leading to the box Abraham Lincoln occupied the night of the assassination... The hole was bored by my father, Henry Clay Ford, or rather on his orders, and was bored for the simple reason that it would allow the guard... easy opportunity whenever he so desired to look into the box rather than open the inner door to check on the Presidential party..."
-- Frank Ford in a letter to Ford's Theatre historian Dr. George J. Olszewsku, April 13, 1962 |