On Saturday September 20, 2014, North Park Theatre will be screening a re-enactment of the trial that is considered Buffalo’s “Trial of the Century”. The assassination of President William McKinley forever changed the course of Buffalo NY. The assassination took place at what many people consider the height of Buffalo’s prominence on the world stage.
As all eyes were on the 1901 Pan American Exhibition, with McKinley’s visit adding to the hyped up glitz and glam, no one could have guessed that a bullet from the gun of anarchist Leon Czolgosz would send the nation on to another course and Buffalo into a state of self inflicted turmoil (some say McKinley’s curse).
The day after speaking to a crowd of 50,000 people, the American president was gunned down at the Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds. Nine days after McKinley’s death, Zolgosz was put on trial. After being convicted, the anarchist was sentenced to death by electric chair, which coincidentally was invented in Buffalo, NY.
A reenactment of Buffalo’s Trail of the Century will now be screened at the North Park Theatre, for all to witness the courtroom drama “first hand”. The reenactment by the Erie County Bar Association was filmed in the exact same courtroom where the anarchist was tried (Erie County Hall), one century later.
A Screening of the Centennial Re-enactment of People vs. Leon Czolgosz
Saturday September 20, 2014
North Park Theatre
Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, New York
9:30 a.m. Welcome
10:00 a.m. Curtain Up
Admission if free
Sponsored by the Buffalo Presidential Center