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KD Country: Abe Lincoln Slept Here

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Jun 19, 2009 8:49 pm US/Eastern

KD Country: Abe Lincoln Slept Here

Reporting
Dave Crawley
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― No president faced greater trials than Abraham Lincoln.

But on Valentine's Day, 1861, the newly-elected Commander-in-Chief was still hopeful that war could be avoided when he spoke from the balcony of the Monongahela House on his only stop in Pittsburgh.

A current exhibit at Heinz History Center includes many of the relics from the room where Lincoln slept.

"He slept in this very bed," History Center President Andy Masich said as he gestured toward the display. "And he probably had to sleep diagonally across it because he was six feet four.

"In 1935, when the Monongahela House was torn down, and they carefully wrapped it up in burlap and sent it out to South Park," he said.

It was tucked away in the attic of the carpenter's shop, until one of the carpenters discovered the long lost artifact in 2006. South Park manager John Stibrik led us up the steps.

"And you can see it's a little narrow," he said. "I'm assuming that's why it was in so many pieces. Right back here," he added, gesturing toward the back of the attic.

"All the way, in that hole back here. At the end of the building was a false door back there.

"I got real nervous. How many times in your life are you going to find Lincoln's bed?"

Now the History Center owns the bed in which two other presidents, also later assassinated, once slept.

Andy Masich ticked off the names. "President Garfield, President McKinley. In fact some people wonder was it cursed."

Though that question may never be answered, the mystery of the missing bed has been solved.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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