President McKinley was greeting admirers at the Pan-American Exposition on September 6, 1901, when Leon Czolgosz, a professed anarchist, fired two shots from almost point blank range. One bullet glanced off the President's sternum, but the other entered his abdomen.

Drawing of the moment Czolgosz fired, as shown on the cover of the September 21, 1901 issue of Leslie's Weekly.

The wounded President was taken by ambulance to an emergency hospital on the Exposition grounds, where Dr. Matthew D. Mann attempted to find and remove the bullet from McKinley. The bullet could not be located, but Mann was able to stabilize the President so that he could be taken, by ambulance, to the home of John G. Milburn for further treatment. During the eight days following the shooting, the President first seemed to rally but then finally weakened. He died at the Milburn home on September 14.

A small funeral service was held at the Milburn home on Sunday morning, September 15, after which a horse-drawn carriage carried McKinley's body to the Buffalo City Hall, where he lay in state from 1:30 to 11:00 p.m. A funeral train carried the body to Washington, D.C., and then to Canton, Ohio, where his funeral was held on September 19.

Source

University at Buffalo Libraries library.buffalo.edu

See Also

Pan-American Exposition

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This page was last updated on September 06, 2018.