Although Robert Marshall's lynching was not the only one that occurred within Utah's borders, it was the last in the West.

In the twilight of 15 June 1925, J. Milton Burns, a marshal of Castle Gate (a mining community in Price Canyon) was murdered while he was making his rounds. Two boys said they saw a black man running from the scene. Rumors spread through the town of a black murderer, and the story became more violent with each retelling. Marshall sought refuge at the shack of an elderly black man named George. Afraid of being implicated in the crime, George turned Marshall in to the authorities three days after the murder. Mine company officials caught Marshall, met with the county sheriff and deputies, and accompanied Marshall to Price's jail. Marshall was sitting in the backseat of a car when a crowd overtook the car and drove it southeast toward Wellington. A procession of cars followed the mob that took Marshall.

Once deputies arrived at the site near Wellington, Marshall's body was hanging from a tree. Deputies cut the rope, but when Marshall uttered a moan, the crowd yelled to string him up again, and the officers accommodated the crowd. As many as 4,000 people witnessed the lynching, and some brought picnic lunches for the occasion. Marshall's body was put on display at the local funeral parlor, and photos of the hanging were sold to the townspeople for 25 cents each.

Two days later, eleven men were arrested for Marshall's murder. However, none of the 125 people called to testify before the grand jury would identify any of the participants. The Ku Klux Klan did not organize the lynching, but the eleven men who were charged with the lynching were known Klansmen. Since efforts to investigate were stymied, the charges against the men were dropped.

It is not clear if Marshall murdered Burns-no evidence points to his guilt or innocence. What is clear is that Marshall was, as it says on his new gravestone, a victim of intolerance.

Craddock Matthew Gilmour (1909-2004) was a longtime advocate for world peace and justice. In 1998, he organized a "Day of Reconciliation and Forgiveness" in Price to atone for the lynching of Robert Marshall, an event that, as a youth in Price during the lynching, he would never forget.

Born in Kenilworth, Utah to Scottish and Swedish immigrants, Gilmour graduated from Carbon County High School. He received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University, his Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School, and studied English law at Downing College, Cambridge, England.

Gilmour practiced law in London and New York, but after Pearl Harbor was bombed, decided to volunteer for the army in 1942 as a private. He served stateside, training with the armored division forces in the South and was promoted through the ranks to colonel. His work on war contracts at the Pentagon during the last year of the war earned Gilmour the Legion of Merit.

After the war, Gilmour moved his family west, where he served as general counsel during the 1950s to the Utah Tax Commission before entering private practice in Salt Lake City. He served on Governor Clyde's council on aging in the 1960s and established many programs for the elderly. Gilmour also served on the State Bar Association as chair of the Dangerous Drugs and Narcotics Committee for six years. Later, Gilmour retired from law to form a company that produces chemical lime products for industry and municipalities.

When Robert Marshall was lynched in Price in 1925, Gilmour was 15 years old. He had taken a business trip with his father to Salt Lake City, and on the way home they stopped at the Castle Gate store. They saw a man exiting the store with a rope in his hands, who said there was going to be "a necktie party." When Gilmour and his father returned home, they found that their mother was already fuming about the news.

Gilmour did not witness the lynching, but the event and the silence that shrouded it stayed with him. He organized the "Day of Reconciliation and Forgiveness" around the thirtieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination on 4 April 1998. Gilmour aimed to seek reconciliation and forgiveness as steps toward ending racial injustices, something he felt was still prevalent in Utah over 70 years after Marshall's lynching.

The interfaith service included participation from Episcopal, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, and local LDS leaders. Three hundred students from the University of Utah and members of the black Calvary Baptist Church congregation in Salt Lake City drove to Price for the event. Officiators dedicated a monument for Marshall's unmarked grave, reading: "Robert Marshall, Lynched June 18, 1925, A Victim of Intolerance, May God Forgive."

The collection includes research Gilmour performed surrounding the Marshall lynching, as well as the documents regarding the Day of Reconciliation and Forgiveness event.