This column originally appeared in the Reno Gazette Journal on Nov. 4, 2012.

The murder trial of Morris Rockwood Preston and Joseph William Smith was among the most controversial events in early 20th century Nevada and made national news. The courtroom drama pitted labor union radicals against the Goldfield corporate establishment led by powerful mine owner George Wingfield. Preston would be nominated for president of the United States in 1908 while incarcerated in the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

A jury convicted union officials Preston and Smith for the March 1907 shooting of Goldfield restaurant owner John Silva during a labor dispute. After being charged with first-degree murder for shooting Silva, Preston was convicted of second-degree murder. Smith, deemed a co-conspirator,

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