It is best known for being the house where President Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865 after being shot the previous evening at Ford's Theatre located across the street.

On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd were attending a performance of Our American Cousin when John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer, entered the box and shot the President in the back of the head.

[4] Individuals in the room when he died included his son Robert Todd Lincoln; Senator Charles Sumner; generals Henry Wager Halleck, Richard James Oglesby, Corporal James Tanner, and Montgomery C. Meigs; and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Booth was located in Virginia 2 weeks later and was shot by one of the Union soldiers, Sergeant Boston Corbett, dying less than three hours later.

Since 1933, the National Park Service has maintained Petersen House as a historical museum, recreating the scene at the time of Lincoln's death.