Assassination Relics at The Chicago World's Fair (1893)?

[ReignetteC]

Per a newspaper clipping from the digital files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, the Surratt House was once considered a potential "sideshow" for the Columbian Exposition in 1893.

In a special dispatch to the Globe-Democrat and with a hand-written date of 1892, the article, "Collecting Lincoln Assassination Relics," noted the following:

A company of Washingtonians has been formed to collect relics connected with the assassination of President Lincoln to be a side show [sic] at the World's Fair. They have made an offer of $15,000 for Mrs. Surratt's old house in Surratsville, Prince George's County, Md. The house and the farm surrounding it are now owned by J.W. Wheatley, who only paid $2000 for the whole property.

. . .Mr. Wheatley, the present owner, will likely accept the exhibition company's liberal offer, and the old house will be carefully removed to Chicago.

Further, the article notes that the "company" made an offer to Mr. Mudd "for the piece of one of Booth's boots which Dr. Mudd cut off when he set the fractured leg."

(I apologize if this has been previously discussed and I missed the thread.)