 On March 16, 1886, he was issued , for a type of electrical thermostat.Loomis died at Terra Alta on October 13, 1886 at the age of 60, and was buried in a local cemetery.George Loomis reported that near the end of his life, Mahlon recounted that "an impulse has driven me that I could not resist" and "I know that I am by some, even many, regarded as a crank—by some perhaps as a fool—for allowing myself to the sacrifice of material advantages to abandon a lucrative profession and pursue this "ignus fatuus", but I know that I am right, and if the present generation lives long enough their opinions will be changed—and their wonder will be that they did not perceive it before.