It's All About Abe, and They're Lovin' It

Senator Harry Reid and Paul Tetreault, director of the Ford's Theatre Society, sign a bound copy of construction plans for the Ford's Theatre Museum renovations. The society's chairman, Wayne Reynolds, holds the book. (Reflections Photography)

Abe Lincoln always draws a crowd. Plenty of VIP history buffs -- Harry Reid, Byron Dorgan, Ed Markey, Catherine Reynolds, Chris Matthews, Roy Blunt -- came to Ford's Theatre Tuesday night for the opening of its revamped museum on Lincoln's life and death. Guests toured the exhibit (including the gun that killed the 16th president and the clothes he wore that fatal night), stood in the presidential box where he was shot and dined on the historic theater's stage. A question from Michigan's Carl Levin: "Do you know where the actual chair Lincoln was assassinated in is?" Greenfield Village, outside of Detroit -- Henry Ford bought it for his private collection. Ford's Theatre Director Paul Tetreault is already negotiating to bring every artifact (that chair, the bed where Lincoln died) back to Ford's by 2015, the 150th anniversary of the death.