charlesgilbertgates

Charles Gilbert Gates, multimillionaire son of the legendary financier John W. ("Bet-a-Million") Gates, had gone on a hunting expedition near Cody, Wyoming, the home of Buffalo Bill Cody, in hopes of restoring his health and vigor. Soon after this photo was taken, Gates was in his private train car on a siding in Cody, celebrating his hunting prowess, when he was suddenly stricken and died. His body was returned to New York City for a funeral that was held on November 2, 1913. The Funeral: The irrepressibe Mr. Gates:

Here is the article I started in Wikipedia last time: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Gilbert_Gates

Another photo of the Charles G. Gates funeral: Hours before his death, bidding farewell to Buffalo Bill Cody, after a hunting trip in Cody, Wyoming: Charles G. Gates photo, with comments about him: Gates died on October 28, 1913, of a heart attack, in Cody, Wyoming, where he had been hunting elk with friends, not long after Prince Albert I of Monaco hunted there with Buffalo Bill Cody himself.

Charles G. Gates (d. 1913), prominent young Wall Street broker, married his second wife Florence Hopwood of Minneapolis in 1911, shortly after his father, millionaire John Warne Gates. president of Illinois Steel, died in Paris. (He and first wife, Mary Martin of St. Louis, divorced, also in 1911.) CG Gates died suddenly, from a heart attack while on a hunting trip in Wyoming in October 1913. He was 37. His mother, Dellora Baker Gates, survived him. Florence Hopwood Gates soon married again, in January 1915, to Harold Lee Judd.

Date on photo negative (in reverse) appears to be July 5, 1913. Charles Gilbert Gates was the son of John W. ("Bet A Million") Gates, pioneer manufacturer of barb wire, who (with the help of Judge Elbert Gary) grew the wire manufacturing industry into a monopoly, which became part of Andrew Carnegie's U. S. Steel Corporation. Charles Gates was a free spender, who boasted that he gave away a million dollars a year, just in tips. He was also addicted to speed, and several times raced in private trains across the continent to set speed records for long distance travel. One such exploit took place in July, 1913 -- a fast trip from his home in Minneapolis to New York City, where he had a seat on the Stock Exchange. "The most sensational of all the stories in which Charles G. Gates has figured," said the New York Times in its obituary, "was a report from Minneapolis last July that he had been thrashed in a restaurant by Frank Hopwood, his father-in-law." That report pursued Gates to New York, where on his arrival he denied the story, and said that he would return to Minneapolis and thrash the person who launched the rumor, if he could identify him. Here is the New York Times report of Gates' death, October 29, 1913: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C02E...

This photo matches others of Charles Gilbert Gates in the Library of Congress collections. An uncropped version of this image was copyrighted in 1903 by someone other than Bain. It was used in 1911 for a news story about Gates traveling from Yuma, AZ to New York on a special train. The date written on a Bain negative may represent the date it was made or it may represent a later date, perhaps when it was acquired or used. It makes sense that the photo may have been acquired or used to illustrate Gates' exploits in July 1913. The date on the negative sometimes corresponds to the date it was taken but not always. In this case the photo was probably taken ten years earlier. We'll add some information to the description when we update this record.

What a charmer, from the photograph!

The photograph was copyrighted in 1903, so he would have been about 27 when it was taken. He appears to be smoking a cigar: perhaps indicative of a habit which contributed to his fatal heart attack . . . . By referencing those column bases and other architectural details, NYC historians may be able to pinpoint the photo's exact location.