Tickets Available for New Lincoln Memorial Museum

By Ed Epstein

Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Big crowds are expected when the new $70 million, 15,00-square-foot underground museum and visitors center opens at the Lincoln Memorial on June 25, so the National Park Service is instituting a ticketing system.

Part of the exhibits at the new underground museum.

The tickets are free, although there is a $1 non-refundable service fee. Go to recreation.gov and search for "Lincoln undercroft" to get to the page for obtaining timed tickets. Large groups and individuals can be accommodated.

The Park Service suggests visitors set aside two hours to visit the museum in the memorial's undercroft, or foundation level, and the above-ground memorial itself.

Visitors will see the massive pillars that support the memorial and will go through a museum that covers the memorial's history, its important role in American history since it opened in 1922 to honor President Abraham Lincoln and how perceptions of Lincoln and the memorial have changed.

The glass-walled undercroft project, years in the planning and actual construction, was mostly privately financed. Some $45 million came from the National Parks Foundation. Philanthropists donated the remainder, including from David Rubenstein, who gave $10 million. He has funded numerous projects involving American history.

The project also includes a bookshop, new elevators and restrooms.

The undercroft is 44,000 square feet in total. It was designed to support the massive memorial above on Washington's spongy soil. The seated Lincoln statue by Daniel Chester French weighs 75 tons.

(Photo from the National Park Service.)