Booth as seen in SC

[J. Beckert]

(07-03-2013 02:54 PM)Rhatkinson Wrote:  2. An article from the 1883 collapse of Ford's when it was used as a government office building. Jim Garrett told me that the presidential box was boarded up but not removed when the government turned the theater into an office. Does anyone have any information about this?
Heath

I flipped through The Restoration of Ford's Theater and could find no reference that the box was not removed. I also couldn't find a reference that it was. I've read that Ford had boarded it up with the intent that it would never be used again before his intended re-opening on July 10th., 1865. This performance of "The Octoroon", the piece scheduled after "Our American Cousin", was scheduled to be the first piece performed since the assassination, but it never occurred due to threats and an order by the Judge Advocate that Troops be stationed there and deny admission to all who intended to attend. The book states - "In mid-August, 1865 Dunbar (the contractor awarded the $28,500 contract to convert the theater to office space), began tearing out the the interior as souvenir hunters went wild. By December of that year, Dunbar had altered the building to such an extent that the Surgeon General was authorized to take it over for the use of the Army Medical Museum." 

My question then is for Jim - is there documentation that the box was intact until the 1893 collapse?

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Disregard. Thanks, Jim!