Presidential Biographies | McKinley Administrations - Post-presidential Years

Post-presidential Years

On September 6, 1901, while visiting the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, Leon F. Czolgosz, a deranged millworker and anarchist shot President McKinley twice at point-blank range. His wounds were not properly dressed, and as a result McKinley died of gangrene eight days later. After McKinley's death, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president of a shocked and mourning nation, finishing out the last three years of McKinley's term.