September 6, 1901: President William McKinley Is Assassinated

The last known photograph of the 25th President of the United States,

William McKinley, walking into the Temple of Music, September 6, 1901.

September 6, 1901: President William McKinley is shot in Buffalo, New York. He dies 8 days later, at the age of 58.

A native of Canton, Ohio, McKinley had served in the Union Army in the American Civil War, and had served his home State in Congress and as Governor. Nominated for President by the Republican Party in 1896, with a depression going on, he ran on what his campaign chairman, Ohio political fixer Mark Hanna, called "the full dinner pail."

His Democratic opponent was Congressman William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who said the answer to America's economic woes was the free coinage of silver, as opposed to gold. This split the party, and painted Bryan and the Democrats as people playing games with the economy.

The election was on November 3, and many bosses told their employees, "If Bryan wins on Tuesday, don't come to work on Wednesday." It was a threat that workers could be fired for voting for Bryan, but it was also a scare tactic: If Bryan wins, this company won't survive. McKinley won in a landslide, as Bryan's "Populist" message simply didn't reach enough Americans.

McKinley's reforms did end the depression that had begun with a tariff bill in 1890 -- which he, as Congressman, had written -- but really got going with the stock market's Panic of 1893. (They didn't call them "crashes" until 1929.) He also launched the Spanish-American War of 1898, which further enriched the already-rich.

Still, there was lots of discontent. Bryan thought his Populist message would work in 1900, paired with anger over the imperialism of 1898. It didn't: McKinley won in an even bigger landslide.

In 1901, Buffalo was enjoying the fruits of the Industrial Revolution, and launched the Pan-American Exposition, a world's fair. McKinley attended, and gave a speech on September 5, producing one of the earliest voice recordings of any President.

The next day, September 6, he was at the Exposition's Temple of Music, shaking hands with well-wishers. One man did not wish him well: Leon Czolgosz a 28-year-old Polish-American steelworker from Michigan, who admitted his crime, saying that it wasn't fair that one man should have so much power when most people had so little. At 4:07 PM, he shot McKinley twice in the abdomen.

Leon Czolgosz

McKinley was taken to the house of the Exposition's president, prominent Buffalo lawyer John G. Milburn. For 8 days, doctors tried in vain to reach the bullet. As with the assassination of President James Garfield 20 years earlier, they may have done him more harm than good. He died at 2:15 AM on September 14, 1901.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt came to Buffalo by train, and was sworn in at the home of another major Buffalo lawyer, Ansley Wilcox, 1 mile south of where McKinley was being treated. (The Wilcox House has been preserved, and it stands at 641 Delaware Avenue. The Milburn House, at 1140 Delaware Avenue, was not, and was demolished in 1957.)

It took just 7 weeks to try, convict and execute Czolgosz, and even his fellow anarchists turned on him, saying he did their cause more harm than good.

It has been suggested that Buffalo never recovered from the assassination, and that a curse was placed on its sports teams ever since. They've never had a Major League Baseball team since, unless you count the Federal League of 1914 and 1915. They lost the NBA's Braves. The NHL's Sabres have played for over 50 years, and have never won a Stanley Cup. And although the Bills won 2 AFL Championships, they've never won one in the NFL. Nor has any Buffalo-area team won an NCAA football or basketball championship. Because of COVID restrictions, the Toronto Blue Jays played "home games" at Sahlen Field in Buffalo in 2020 and 2021.

The site of the Temple of Music is now a suburban housing development. There is a historical marker at the site, at 17 Fordham Drive. This is 4 miles north of the McKinley Monument, in Niagara Square, on which City Hall stands. City Hall has statues of the 2 Presidents who called Buffalo home, Millard Fillmore (1850-53) and Grover Cleveland (1885-89 and 1893-97). 

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September 6, 1901 was a Friday. Basketball had been invented less than 10 years earlier, football and hockey barely even existed at the professional level. But There were games played in what would later be called Major League Baseball, but while the teams are still around, many of the names are not:

* The New York Giants got swept in a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat them 15-2 in the 1st game and 13-4 in the 2nd game. This version of the Polo Grounds burned down in 1911, and was replaced by the more familiar version.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Cincinnati Reds, 13-1 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Because their manager was Ned Hanlon, someone thought of Hanlon's Superbas, a well-known circus troupe of the time. In 1911, they became the Brooklyn Dodgers.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Beaneaters, 9-3 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Orphans, 3-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Chicago team's longtime leader, Adrian "Cap" Anson, had left them after the 1897 season. By that point, given his age, he was being called "Pop," and so the team was nicknamed the Orphans, because "they missed their Pop." They began using the name Cubs in 1903.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 8-3 at Bennett Park in Detroit. After the 1911 season, that ballpark was torn down, and what would eventually be named Tiger Stadium opened on the site.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at South Side Park in Chicago.

* And a doubleheader was split at League Park in Cleveland. The Cleveland Blues won the 1st game 10-7, and the Baltimore Orioles won the 2nd game 7-4, after it was called due to darkness. The Blues would become the Naps in 1902, named for 2nd baseman and manager Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, and hold the name through 1914. The next year, they became the Indians.

The Orioles' story is a little more complicated. Named for the National League team that won 3 Pennants and nearly 2 others in the 1890s, they went bankrupt during the 1902 season. The rights to their place in the American League was sold to a pair of New Yorkers, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery, and they started the New York Highlanders in 1903. But, officially, the Highlanders are not the same franchise as the 1901-02 Orioles. They are, however, what they have been since adopting this name in 1913: The New York Yankees.

* The Boston Americans and the Milwaukee Brewers were not scheduled. The Americans would become the Red Sox in 1908. This Brewers team would become the St. Louis Browns in 1902, and a new Baltimore Orioles in 1954. They were replaced by a new Brewers in 1970.