A Billionaire Just Spent $18 Million So Every American Could See Lincoln’s Actual Signature for Free

June 29, 2026 Cat2, The Media
Blue Cat Studio via shutterstock

Ken Griffin paid a record $18.1 million for Lincoln's rarest documents – and then handed them to the American people.

Now they sit underground, beneath Lincoln's marble feet, in a room sealed for a century.

And as of today, you can walk in and see them yourself.

Built on Swampland and Almost Forgotten

The Lincoln Memorial almost didn't happen.

The ground where it stands today was a muddy floodplain called the Potomac Flats – marshland dragged out of the Potomac River just years before construction began.

Engineers dug more than 40 feet down to reach solid bedrock.

They poured 122 massive concrete pillars into the earth to anchor the marble above from sinking into the swamp.

The resulting underground chamber – a cathedral of concrete stretching 50,000 square feet – became known as the Undercroft.

And then everyone forgot about it.

For decades, the chamber sat sealed beneath one of the most-visited monuments in the country.

Maintenance crews knew it was there.

Researchers occasionally ducked inside.

But the eight million people who visited the Lincoln Memorial every year had no idea a two-story cavern sat directly below their feet.

In 1975, workers renovating the memorial's bathrooms stumbled back in – and brought along members of the National Speleological Society to evaluate what they'd found.

They declared it an underground cave.

Water seeping through granite overhead had spent a century forming stalactites.

The cave had developed its own ecosystem – insects, rodents, its own microclimate.

And all over those concrete pillars, they found something nobody expected: graffiti sketched by the original construction workers from the 1910s.

What the Workers Left Behind

One man – who signed his name "Bosco Johnny" on a nearby pillar – left behind the finest drawings in the collection.

NPS officials believe one of his sketches depicts silent film star Theda Bara, rendered in carpenter's pencil with dark lipstick and the word "vamp" in ornate script.

Another pillar features Mutt and Jeff – characters from the first newspaper comic strip ever printed.

There may even be a portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, sketched by a laborer who never imagined anyone would find it.

Old work boots, liquor bottles, hand tools – all of it preserved and catalogued.

The men who built America's most iconic presidential memorial left a time capsule sealed inside it.

For a brief window in the 1980s, the NPS offered flashlight tours.

Then a visitor noticed asbestos on overhead pipes, and the space went dark – remaining closed to the public for nearly 40 years.

Lincoln's Own Handwriting Is Down There

What opened Thursday is something different entirely.

The $69 million project – a decade in the making, backed by $26 million in federal funds and private philanthropy from David Rubenstein, Ken Griffin, and The History Channel – converted 15,000 square feet of the undercroft into a museum.

Glass walls rise floor to ceiling within the original concrete infrastructure, letting visitors look out at the cathedral pillars while leaving the raw space untouched.

The graffiti stays where Bosco Johnny put it.

The stalactites are still dripping.

And at the center of it all sit two documents that almost no private citizen has ever stood in front of.

Citadel founder Ken Griffin spent $13.7 million – more than five times the previous auction record – to buy Lincoln's handwritten copy of the 13th Amendment at Sotheby's last year.

He paid another $4.4 million, also a record, for a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Then he loaned both to the American people.

They now sit on display beneath the statue of the president who signed them – available to any American willing to make a reservation.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum toured the space before opening day and put it plainly.

"We're not a nation without flaws," Burgum said, "but we are a nation that was based on continuous improvement."

NPS Superintendent Kevin Griess was even more direct: "The purpose of this memorial is to expose the entirety of Lincoln – who built it, what it took to build it, and what it looks like finished – in time for the 250th birthday of our country."

That's what this is.

Not a government program.

Not a DEI exhibit.

A private citizen spending $18.1 million of his own money so that every American – free of charge – can stand underground, beneath Lincoln's feet, and read his actual signature on the document that ended slavery.

Timed-entry tickets are free with a $1 service fee at recreation.gov, or walk-up starting at 8:45 a.m. at the Korean War Veterans Memorial kiosk.

This one is worth the trip.

Sources:

  • Alexandra Koch, "Lincoln Memorial's hidden 15,000-square-foot undercroft opens to the public after a century underground," Fox News, June 24, 2026.
  • "National Park Foundation Announces Historic Loan of Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment to the Lincoln Memorial from Kenneth C. Griffin," PR Newswire, June 15, 2026.
  • "New Opening: Access the Lincoln Memorial Undercroft," DC250.us, June 2026.
  • "An inside look at the Lincoln Memorial Undercroft ahead of its opening," National Desk, June 2026.
  • "Is There Graffiti of a Legendary Film Star Under the Lincoln Memorial?," Artnet News, February 2025.
  • "Unveiling the history beneath the Lincoln Memorial," CBS News, June 2026.