On July 5, 1865, the United States Secret Service was established as a new division of the Treasury Department, created to combat the rampant counterfeiting that threatened the postwar economy. Only in 1902—after President William McKinley’s assassination—did the agency assume its modern role of full‑time presidential protection.
The haunting irony is that the legislation authorizing the Secret Service sat on Abraham Lincoln’s desk the very night he was assassinated. He had discussed the counterfeiting crisis earlier that afternoon, meaning the agency that would one day guard presidents was approved just hours before its first possible assignment was lost forever.
Photo Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt during his 1940 campaign with U.S. Secret Service agents standing on the vehicle’s running boards. By FDR Library via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
