Our office’s front lobby is renowned for historical exhibits and other displays capturing the past.

Even very tragic events.

One of our display cases is the home of an exhibit that commemorates the 150th anniversary of the death of President Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln died on the morning of April 15, 1865, hours after being shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

The exhibit items include a single-shot Derringer pistol similar to the one used by Booth in the assassination. Also displayed is a scrap of black cloth from one of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln’s mourning dresses and a fragment of wallpaper from the room where Lincoln died at the Peterson House across the street from Ford’s Theater.

The items in this exhibit are courtesy of former state legislator and history buff Stuart Halsan of Centralia.