Political and religious events were important public entertainments in Lincoln's day—-but people also enjoyed fairs, militia drills, parades, circuses, dances, dinner parties, concerts, plays, and lectures. Initially such events were held outdoors. But as villages became more citified, residents built spacious indoor meeting places. Cook's Hall was one of several public halls that graced the capital city at various times from the mid-1830s to the Civil War. the Hall opened with a vocal recital in December 1858. Over the next two years visiting theatrical troupes, military drill teams, musical ensembles, magicians, scientists, authors, poets, artists, world travelers, and other lecturers appeared here—-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and Theodore Parker among them. The notorious Lola Montez—-dancer, actress, and former mistress of the King of Bavaria—-set disapproving tongues wagging with her lecture on "Fashion" to a packed hall in the spring of 1860.

American Heavyweight champion John C. Heenan reportedly visited presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in October 1860. Republican newspapers assured readers that Heenan was a "warm admirer" of Lincoln. Democratic newspapers countered that only the "lower classes" followed boxing. Heenan put on an exhibition match here the following December to a sold-out house. Boxing was a bare-knuckled sport in those days, and both Heenan and his opponent left for St. Louis after the fight to recuperate from their injuries. We don't know if Lincoln or his sons attended. As a former wrestler Lincoln may have wished to; Mary would probably have considered it beneath the dignity of the president-elect.

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