Nevada State Prison Inmate Case Files
Gee Jon
Gee Jon was the first person in the United States to be executed by lethal gas at the Nevada State Prison on February 8, 1924. His crime was killing Tom Quong Kee in Mina, Nevada on August 27, 1921. Born in China, Gee was twenty-nine at the time of his execution. He got the death penalty for pulling the trigger while his partner Hughie Sing, because of his youth, had his sentence commuted to life in prison. Gee Jon had spent most of his life in San Francisco's Chinatown and was a member of the Hop Sing Tong. Many murders in the West in 1921 were due to Tong warfare.
For more information see "Example for the Nation : Nevada's Execution of Gee Jon" by Loren Chan, (Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Volume 18, No.2, pgs 90-106, Summer 1975.)
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