text: Visitors to a metro-Detroit museum have a chance to get an up-close look at the chair Abraham Lincoln was shot in at Washington D.C.'s Ford's Theatre in 1865 next week as the museum puts it center stage. The red, worn chair will be removed from its enclosure at Dearborn's Henry Ford Museum and displayed in an open plaza on April 15 as part of the museum's observance of the assassination's 150 anniversary. Two days earlier, it will be onstage when renowned historian and Lincoln expert Doris Kearns Goodwin delivers a sold-out lecture at The Henry Ford. The chair in which Abraham Lincoln was shot has been on display at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, for 85 years. On April 15, it will be removed from its encasing to be displayed for the 150th anniversary of the assassination . Abraham Lincoln (left) was shot in Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. on April 14, 1865 by pro-Confederacy actor, John Wilkes Booth (right). Lincoln died from his injuries the next day . The chair has a dark stain on the back, which many visitors believe to be blood from the shooting. But historians at the museum say that the stain is oil from other people's heads who sat in the chair before Lincoln . Lincoln's chair has been part of the museum started by pioneering automaker Henry Ford - no relation to the theater-owning Ford family - since its founding 85 years ago. The government removed it from the theater and held it as evidence, and it ended up at the Smithsonian Institution. The wife of a theater co-owner petitioned to reclaim it, then sold it at auction to an agent working for Henry Ford. Henry Ford also bought the Logan County Courthouse where Lincoln practiced law in Illinois in the 1840s and moved it to the outdoor area next to his museum known as Greenfield Village. For decades, the theater chair was housed in that courthouse. Around 1980, the chair was placed inside the museum, where it's now part of the 'With Liberty and Justice for All' exhibit. 'Lincoln was one of Henry Ford's heroes - when he decided he wanted to have this village, he wanted to collect Lincoln stuff as an educational tool,' said curator Donna Braden. 'The courthouse is pretty much the first thing Henry Ford acquired related to Lincoln and the chair came soon after.' A playbill from Our American Cousin from the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 is shown on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn . A copy of a hand colored 1870 lithographic print by Gibson & Co. provided by the U.S. Library of Congress shows John Wilkes Booth shooting U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as he sits in the presidential box at Ford's Theatre . A copy of a 1865 lithographic print by Currier & Ives provided by the U.S. Library of Congress shows the same event from a different angle . Many visitors wonder whether dark spots on the back of the chair are Lincoln's blood. Not so, say museum workers: The stains are oil from other people's heads who sat in the chair before that fateful night when Lincoln was shot by a pro-Confederacy actor, John Wilkes Booth. Steve Harris, a historic presenter at the museum, tells passers-by that Lincoln's head would have been positioned much higher than the stain because he was 6ft, 4in tall. Taking in objects from the final hours of two important American lives is a major draw to the museum. The Henry Ford also owns the limousine President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was fatally shot in Dallas nearly a century later. Museum officials say the chair and car are among the most visited artifacts in the museum, along with the bus Rosa Parks rode in when she refused to give up her seat to a white rider and helped spark the civil rights movement. Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. has arranged the presidential box identically to the way it was the night Lincoln was shot through the doorway . Abraham Lincoln's iconic silk top hat, which he was wearing the night he was assassinated, is part of the museum display at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Goodwin, author of 'Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,' told The Associated Press that the chair will offer an extra 'dimension' to her words and the experience of those in the room. 'There's an intimacy to it that catapults you back in time,' she said. 'And hopefully, along with that, you're not just thinking of the death but the life that made it worthwhile.' Museum visitor Jeff Buczkiewicz stood before the chair, peered silently into the glass-enclosed case at the rocking chair, then snapped pictures for posterity . 'You just get drawn into these things,' said Buczkiewicz, 47, who came from suburban Chicago with his family to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. 'It is a tragic part of our history and our country. I think it's important to take it all in.' Milestone anniversaries seem to add to the impact of objects like the chair and limo. About 8,000 people visited the limo on November 22, 2013, a free-admission day marking the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, so the chair is likely to draw plenty of visitors on the Lincoln anniversary, which also has free admission. The single-shot Deringer pistol John Wilkes Booth used to kill Abraham Lincoln is displayed at the Center for Education and Leadership at Ford's Theatre in Washington . 'It really is about the power of the artifact,' said Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford, as the entire history attraction is known. 'It's less about the artifact itself than the symbolic nature of the artifact that represents a great paradigm change in the history of our country,' she added. Buskiewicz has also visited Dealey Plaza in Dallas where Kennedy was assassinated. 'You just have to try to take it in when you're in those areas,' he said, but he wonders 'why we gravitate' toward places and things associated with these types of events. Goodwin, whose book helped inspire Steven Spielberg's movie, 'Lincoln,' says that standing before iconic yet everyday objects provides a deep experience that transcends the moment that made them famous. 'In some ways, it's more familiar when it's a chair, a bus or a limo,' she said. 'There's something about the tangibility of these things.' The chair in which Lincoln was show is regularly displayed in an encasing at The Henry Ford Museum. For the 150th anniversary it will be taken out of the encasing .
target: The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has had chair for 85 years .
  The worn, red chair, from Washington D.C.'s Ford's Theatre, is usually kept in an enclosed case but will be put in an open plaza on April 15 .
  Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865 .
  The Henry Ford Museum also holds the limo in which John F. Kennedy was shot and the bus Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat .