Lucy Hobbs Taylor died in Lawrence, Kansas, on October 3, 1910, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Lucy Hobbs Taylor died on October 3, 1910, in Lawrence, Kansas, the city where she had practiced dentistry for over four decades and become a beloved local figure known as "Dr. Lucy." She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, where her grave remains a site of historical remembrance today.
By the time of her death, Taylor had lived to see the profession she helped pioneer become steadily more open to women, though full equality remained a distant goal. She had fully retired from active dental practice only three years earlier, in 1907, after decades of hands-on work and years of semi-retirement beginning in 1886. In her later years, she had also devoted considerable energy to civic and political causes, including women's suffrage, hosting rallies in Lawrence with figures such as Susan B. Anthony.
Her death marked the end of a remarkable life that began in obscurity in rural New York and culminated in her recognition as the first woman in the world to earn a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (1866), the first woman admitted to a statewide dental society (Iowa, 1865), and the first licensed woman dentist in Kansas (1867).
Taylor's legacy has been honored posthumously through numerous historical markers, museum exhibits (including at the Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry), and inclusion in accounts of pioneering women in American medicine and science. Her life remains a touchstone in the history of women's entry into licensed professions in the United States.