Lawrence G. Gilson

IT WAS NOT UNCOMMON in Tonopah’s early years for the dead to be buried as “unknown.” Even when a name survived, it was not always possible to confirm it through documentary sources. Such is the case with Lawrence G. Gilson. Contemporary newspaper accounts describing his sensational suicide refer to him as “M. G. Gilson,” while the cemetery map, inquest record, and death certificate identify him as “Lawrence G. Gilson.” Efforts to reconcile these discrepancies and establish his true identity led to numerous dead ends—an all-too-familiar outcome in the transient, record-poor world of early Tonopah. For the purposes of telling his story, he will be identified by the name used in his inquest.

Gilson was a laborer employed on the project laying the first water pipeline into Tonopah. That he was a wanderer is evident from a post-mortem examination of his personal letters, which revealed that he had traveled extensively throughout California in the preceding months. In January 1905, he and a man named Dave Crichton filed a mineral location near Bakersfield. Earlier still, a brief item published in the August 17, 1900 edition of the Great Falls Tribune in Montana reported that Gilson had borrowed approximately $300 from friends and local tradespeople before, as the paper put it, “shaking the dust of the camp from his feet” and disappearing. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he was never located.

“He was known to be penniless and more or less despondent,” one account observed. Contemporary reports further suggested that he had been drinking heavily and was burdened by financial difficulties.

On the evening of Saturday, October 23, 1909, M. G. Gilson took his own life under circumstances that shocked even a community accustomed to hardship and sudden death. He had drawn his pay earlier that day and proceeded to celebrate. It was presumed that once his earnings were gone, despair overtook him and he resolved upon suicide. A note was found in the inside pocket of his coat, scribbled hastily—or perhaps in darkness—on an old time-check. It bore the cryptic words: “I am sleeping—sleeping the game of death.”

Carrying a stick of dynamite, a fuse, and a cap he had obtained from a store, Gilson walked roughly two miles north of Tonopah along the waterline ditch. There, he lay down, placed the dynamite against his head, and lit the fuse. The resulting explosion was fatal, leaving little behind but a deep crater to mark the spot. Men who later searched the area recovered only scattered remnants of his personal effects, among them a membership card for the Bisbee, Arizona Miners’ Union.
In what some interpreted as a grim imitation, another Tonopah miner, Lawrence Gianine, ended his life in a similar manner just days later—an event that stirred quiet concern over the emotional toll exacted on men laboring under the relentless pressures of the mining frontier.

Gilson was ultimately identified through papers found among his belongings, which showed him to be a member of the Point Richmond Aerie of the Fraternal Order of Eagles in California. Further inquiry indicated that his parents resided on Staten Island, New York, though little else could be learned of his family or early life. According to the inquest, Gilson was a native of Sweden, but no documentary proof of this claim has been found. Newspapers variously listed his age as either thirty-three or forty-four, and his appearance and manner of speech suggested that he had received a good education.

His funeral was conducted under the auspices of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Led by the Eagle drum corps, the procession moved to the city cemetery, where Gilson was laid to rest with the customary rites of the order. Beyond that brief ceremony, nothing of him remained—no certain name, no fixed age, no clear homeland—only the violent imprint of his final act and the uneasy knowledge that Tonopah would soon absorb him, as it had so many others, without pause or remembrance.