Gates P. Thruston

Gates Phillips Thruston (June 11, 1835 – December 9, 1912) was an American lawyer and businessman. Born in Ohio, he served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and started a legal practice in Nashville, Tennessee in the reconstruction era. He served as the president of the State Insurance Company. He also was an amateur archeologist and the author of several books about Native American mounds and artifacts. His collection is held at the Tennessee State Museum and Vanderbilt University.

Early life Gates P. Thruston was born on June 11, 1835, in Dayton, Ohio. His paternal grandfather, Buckner Thruston, was a United States Senator.

Career After the war, Thruston became a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee. and he started a collection. When it was republished for commercial use in 1897, Thurston wrote several other books.

Thruston was a commissioner of the Watkins Institute. A Presbyterian minister conducted his funeral; pall-bearers included James Hampton Kirkland and Robert Ewing, and he was buried at the Mount Olivet Cemetery.

His collection of Native American artifacts, which he had donated to Vanderbilt University in 1907, has been exhibited at the Tennessee State Museum since 1986. A book about the collection authored by Stephen D. Cox, the curator of cultural history at the museum, was published in 1985.

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