Lawrence Tyson - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Tyson died in 1929 at a sanitarium in Strafford, Pennsylvania, and is buried in Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville. The obelisk marking the Tyson family plot is among the tallest monuments in the cemetery.

In 1927, Lawrence and Bettie Tyson donated the land for what is now Tyson Park, as well as land for an airstrip (originally in West Knoxville), to the City of Knoxville, asking in return that the city name the airstrip for their son, Charles McGhee Tyson. McGhee Tyson Airport has since been moved to Blount County. Tyson Junior High School, which operated in Knoxville from 1935 until 1986, was named in Lawrence Tyson's honor, as was Camp Tyson, the World War II U.S. Army training post near Paris, Tennessee. Tyson's home on Volunteer Boulevard, which was remodeled by noted architect George Franklin Barber in 1907, is now the University of Tennessee's Tyson Alumni House. In 2012, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In July 2007, Catharine Drew Gilpin, known professionally as Drew Gilpin Faust, a great-granddaughter of Lawrence D. Tyson, became Harvard University's 28th president. Her parents were McGhee Tyson and Catherine (Mellick) Gilpin. Her father's mother was Isabella (Tyson) Gilpin, Lawrence's daughter.