The First U.S. Execution by Gas Chamber

On February 8, 1924, Nevada executed Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of a 1921 killing, in what became the first lethal-gas execution in United States history. The state had passed a “Humane Death Bill” in 1921, betting that poison gas would prove quicker and less brutal than hanging or the electric chair.

The original plan to pump gas directly into a sleeping prisoner’s cell proved unworkable, so officials converted a small concrete building at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City into a sealed chamber. There Jon was strapped to a wooden chair while hydrocyanic (cyanide) gas filled the room.

Promoted as a humane advance, the method instead revealed a slow and visibly distressing death.

The execution was botched: the cold morning kept the liquid acid from vaporizing properly, and the heater faltered. Witnesses watched Jon struggle to breathe for several minutes before he died. Despite this, officials declared the method a success, and the gas chamber spread to roughly a dozen states over the following decades.