Grant Hall Open House 5/3/25

This Saturday, May 3, 2025, will be the quarterly open house of Grant Hall.

Grant Hall is the restored courtroom of the Lincoln conspirators located on Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C. The open houses are a chance to see the room in which the conspirators were tried, check out special exhibits on the subject of Lincoln’s death, and interact with docents who can teach you about the trial of the century. When I lived in the area, I used to volunteer at the open houses, and my good friend Bob Bowser still makes appearances there as Dr. Mudd. Dr. Paul Severance, a speaker at this year’s virtual Surratt Society conference, is also a regular docent, dressed as General Winfield Scott Hancock.

As an active military base, the courtroom is only accessible to the public four times a year, so you definitely want to take advantage of this opportunity if you can. Information on how to register for the open house (which you must do to gain access to the base) can be found here.

For those of you, like me, who live far away from Grant Hall and can’t make the open house, you might enjoy a series of speeches given on the subject of the trial and courtroom that were given on the 150th anniversary of the trial back in 2015. Here are links to the talks given by Michael Kauffman, John Elliott, Barry Cauchon, and Betty Ownsbey.

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