the people were trying to cutoff tiny speess of it and the owner alfonso dunn was cutting off pieces himself and giving them to people so when the park service received it in 1968, it was already in unfortunately very, very delicate condition. we found this approach helps so that we can preserve it. that's our priority. preserve it for present and future generations. at the same time we want to get to see it and enjoy it and having it up so the maximum amount of people can do that. >> we are checking for particulates. >> what do you mean by particulates? >> dust. >> what we see there is our h vac system that maintains proper humidity and temperature levels. this is self-contained in the display unit itself. our first step is to remove the reb likha. the original great coat is not in the case. we do have a replica coat and replica boots and top hat. we don't have the original coat and hat. we have the great coat itself. that's the most important item. the case. >> take one of these and go along the edges here. we are making sure the case has no particulates. >> that's how we wrote it.

lincoln is then the one who gave that great coat to alfonso dunn who was a favorite door keeper, a kind of usher. he's the one who kept it for many years. he kept it in his family for over two generations. he had many offers to have that coat bought from him, including a very generous offer from the famous p.t. barnum. and he refused all those offers. and that coat was in his family's hands until it came to the national park service in 1968. since 1968 ford's theater national historic site has been run through a very special public/private partnership. the public part is the national park service. the private is ford's theater society. and that's been since 1968 that we've run this site together. we've run it both as a national historic site, where we have thousands of visitors come in, t happened here. at the same time, this is still an active working theater. and so in that way we get to preserve lincoln's memory and it is a living memorial thatys tribute to his love of the performing arts. so, that's the way the theater still is today, and we're very proud of that partnership. so, we