CinemaTour - Cinemas Around the World - Ford's Theatre, Washington DC

Welcome to CinemaTour! Sign In

HOME ·· CINEMAS ·· LINKS ·· BOOKS
Contact Cinematour ·· Help & Hints ·· About Cinematour

Ford's Theatre

1992 Photo from the John Lewis collection.

511 Tenth St NW
Washington DC

	Record #26745
Opened: 1863	Capacity: Architect(s): Architectural Style(s): National Register: Current Organ: none
Also Known As: Ford's New Theatre

Information for this tour was contributed by Ford's Theatre.

Theatre entrepreneur John T. Ford leased the First Baptist Church in 1861 and converted it into a music hall. "Ford’s Atheneum" grew in popularity and was poised for tremendous success when the building was destroyed by fire. Undaunted, the entrepreneur immediately began reconstruction and opened Ford’s "New Theatre" in August 1863.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, his wife and two guests attended "Our American Cousin". That night, John Wilkes Booth fired a shot that plunged the nation into mourning and a Theatre into darkness. John Ford tried to reopen the Theatre but threats of arson closed its doors. The government bought the Theatre in 1866 and over the next 90 years it was an office building, warehouse and museum.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a Congressional act to restore the Theatre. Reconstruction began ten years later, and a beautifully restored Ford’s Theatre reopened in 1968 with the play "John Brown’s Body".

Photos
Photos remain the property of the Member and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the Member.

March 2015 photos from the Adam Martin collection.

77 KB · 625x418

82 KB · 625x418

March 2015 photos from the Scott Neff collection.

76 KB · 625x469

June 1992 photos from the John Lewis collection.

95 KB · 625x443	98 KB · 625x443	58 KB · 443x625	63 KB · 625x443	65 KB · 625x443
70 KB · 625x443	72 KB · 625x443	74 KB · 625x441	76 KB · 625x441

Return to the top of this page or Return to the main page

Last featured 2/3/2007. Last edited 2/3/2007.

The content of this website is a research work in progress and is being provided to the public for informational purposes only. As such, articles may contain errors, bias, duplication, or need to be cleaned up. Some documents, images and logos contained in these documents belong to various organizations and corporations. Their inclusion here is for the benefit of the reader and for the benefit of the particular organization, but they are, in fact, the copyrighted property of those organizations. Their presence here does not imply any endorsement of CinemaTour by those organizations. CinemaTour is not affiliated with any cinema or circuit.