Soapy Smith: A Very Bad Man

I have sometimes been asked as the history guy why we remember bad people and bad actions I mean isn't there some history that doesn't deserve to be remembered to me the simple answer that its history is enough but there are other reasons as well one of the primary reasons that we learn history is as a cautionary tale we remember bad people and bad actions because we don't we don't want to repeat them sometimes it's that a bad person is so good at being bad that it just makes you wonder what they might have done if they'd turn their life towards different pursuits and sometimes it's just a good story ripping yarn that reminds us that history does not have to be boring and I guess all of the above applied to the life of Jefferson Smith a scoundrel a very bad man and a man whose history deserves to be remembered Jefferson Randolph Smith ii was born in georgia in 1860 his father was a lawyer and his family was wealthy he developed the manners of a Southern gentleman but the family wealth was lost in the Civil War and his alcoholic father struggled to support the family they moved around winding up in Texas in 1875 at just 16 Jeff Smith drove cattle down the Chisholm Trail to Abilene he was apparently quite capable but cattle drives are very hard work the end of one Drive he came upon a man who was doing the shell game it's a simple game that uses three walnut shells and a dried PE put the pea under one of the channels and and the players back on where the P is versions of the shell game go back at least to ancient Greece well it appears to be gambling it's actually type of confidence trick or con the game operator called a sharp uses sleight of hand to move the P the better always loses the game is not as simple as it appears normally these are careful play to not get caught but it depends upon the sharp earning the audience's confidence often distracting them with their speech sometimes conspirators are used to make the game appear real such people are called shills sometimes the sharp allows a player to win occasionally to make the game appear real sometimes the game itself is a distraction and the players pocket is picked while they are distracted good sharps are ski getting players to choose wrong and goading them into betting more the men took all of Smith's trail money but instead of getting angry Smith cajole him into teaching him the trade Smith was a good fit for a confidence man well not necessarily handsome his genteel manner and southern accent were disarming he had a silver tongue he had great dexterity and a sharp wit and he would come to master the trade the newspaper the San Francisco call would later say of him there is not a trick known to confidence men in which Smith is not an expert he made an early living on the bread and butter of the trade the shell game similar game called three-card Monte or just cheating at poker using marked cards he was good at it he would use shills accomplices to make the games look real and get people to up their bets but these kinds of cons called short cons meaning fast swindles had their limits confidence men had to move on quickly before locals became wise to their tricks or too angry at their losses it was an itinerant life Smith spent years moving from town to town mastering his trade but he found new opportunities in the Colorado town of Leadville when Jeff Smith arrived in Leadville around 1885 it was a busy silver mining town rough-and-tumble town had already attracted Femmes gamblers like Doc Holliday and Alice Ivers known as poker Alice being a boomtown Leadville was a wild place that while not complete without law and order was largely untamed the advantage of a town like Leadville is that it was always getting a new influx of miners seeking their fortune a conman could find new suckers without having to leave town by some accounts that was in Leadville that Smith learned and then perfected the con for which he is most famous the soap swindle the game was fairly simple Smith offered passers-by a chance to buy soap at a very high price $5 a bar claiming that he'd put some money 50 or even $100 bills in the packaging of some of the bars a person can buy a bar of soap for five dollars with a chance of striking it rich and if they don't find money at least they'll have soap the skin works much like the shell game shields are used to make it appear real and once they see the money the suckers buy up all the soap at far more than its value Smith was associated with that particular con that it earned him his nickname when he was finally arrested for the swindle in Leadville the deputy sheriff who arrested him was so flustered by the crowd of angry people who had been swindled that he forgot to ask myth his first name and so on the arrest warrant simply wrote soapy the nickname soapy Smith stuck but the arrests marked the end of the scam in Leadville and soapy had to move on he became determined to find a place where a confidence man could operate without being constantly forced to move on his goal was not just to play the con but to build a network of fellow cons thugs bribed and coerce officers and officials that allowed him to operate without fear of arrest he found that place in Denver Colorado in Denver Smith built a gang that slowly took over the city's criminal element for all the scams both short and long half the money went to soapy he used the money not just to bribe police judges and elected officials by 1889 newspapers claimed he was bribed in both the mayor and that chief of police but they also had people like bankers on his payroll who would help them to identify wealthy targets for their scams his gang did not just include a wide array of grifters but also people skilled at finding and steering potential victims to the various scams the steerers used a number of tools including so-called grip men grip men had through years of practice and research learned the hand signals of various lodges and secret orders that were coming in America using those they could gain a person's trust and then send them off to a dishonest casino or one of several businesses that were fronts for various scams a victim of such a man later described how one of Soapy's grip men drew him into a scam where he lent money to a stranger I just entered the Knights of Pythias one of the strangers saw my PIN and gave me the grip of the order I felt very brotherly the gang also kept Barbara's on the payroll then Barbara's not only played their own short kana bait-and-switch where they promised the cheap shave and cut and ran the prices up with extra amenities but they would also strike up conversations with new customers if they found out things suggesting the man had money to take they would cut a small notch in the back of their hair that soapy steerers could recognize by some accounts this was the origin of using the term marque to refer to the target of a crime soapy managed to keep scams to a level that didn't drop too much attention it was always a supporter of law and order as long as it kept away all crime but his own he built community trust via donations from any causes and events and as his influence grew more gang members came to him he maintained their loyalty by providing his using his connections if they got arrested always paying the bail an attorney costs another bit of Smith's personality emerged he could be randomly generous donations to widows and orphans funds or to build churches may have been to build trust with community to protect his rackets but if he rented to someone on the street who was down and out he might buy them a meal or a new coat one reporter would actually clash with Smith recalled seeing him in the street Smith know this man's hat was worn and bought him a new one when he asked why so he said that he had won some money gambling he was on his way to the bank to deposit it and was trying to spend as much as possible before he got there it might be that soapy Smith was naturally generous or maybe he just hated to save money but author Stanley sourwine speculated in his 2018 book one trick too many that it might have had to do with a superstition that's common among confidence men and often attributed to the famous riverboat swindler Canada bill Jones if you help out someone who's truly in need the superstition goes you will be rewarded 100 fold that superstition is called Bill's luck well Smith was not generally an unpleasant man that Lancaster News of Lancaster South Carolina described him as a most genial and affable crook he also had a temper and was not afraid of violence he was known to have been involved in numerous fights in altercations with other gamblers or victims of his scams a November 1888 edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican reported on a near gunfight in Denver between Smith and a gambler named Pomeroy when Pomeroy drew a gun on soapy of the newspaper reported the latter did not appear to be frightened and pulled his gun from his hip pocket the newspaper concluded what might have happened had not bystanders seized the two men and disarmed them the danger of his temper was demonstrated in 1889 a newspaper editor named John Arkans who had been a colonel during the Civil War began a crusade against Soapy's corruption Arkans went so far as to point out where Smith's family resided and since soapy and a large gang member called banjo parker attacked Arkans as he left his office at the Rocky Mountain News so if he beat the colonel nearly to death with a weighted King Smith was charged with attempted murder but a friendly judge gave him an affordable bail of $1,000 so he paid bail and skipped town the gang had gotten too brazen and reformers were starting to take over the government in Denver and so Smith moved his family to st. Louis and laid low but without soapy in charge the criminal element in Denver became more violent the reformed wave subsided and he was quietly asked to come back when he returned him even more brazen sar1 explained that Smith's gambling establishments were so dishonest that when he was accused of bilking customers and contributing to the city's moral decline he replied that his operation so cheated people that it served as an educational tool to break them of their gambling habit anything that you soapy ins gang took advantage of a silver boom in the Colorado mountain of creed using lessons learned in Denver he quickly took over the town's criminal element an April 1892 issue of the Sioux City Journal described soapy raising a gang before some Sioux City gamblers from setting up a gambling establishment the confrontation led to a gunfight in the Sioux City crew quickly left town so he acted the leading citizen even bringing on his sister's husband a noted Texas lawmen as town marshal he brought the lawless town to heel reducing street violence while allowing soapy and his band to scam the newcomers hoping to strike it rich for every time they had an April 1892 edition of the Topeka newspaper at Kansas farmer described how Creed worked soapy Smith was a very bad man indeed and hired at least 12 men to lead the prospector with a little money or the tender photo just arrived up to the numerous tables in his gambling saloon where they were robbed in various ways and so openly that they deserve to lose all that was taken from them as the Cree boom slowed Smith went back to Denver where it became involved in a fight between reformers Colorado Governor Davis Hanson Waite and officials at the Denver fire and police ports when Waite fired two of the board members in an attempt to overturn corruption and put it into illegal gambling it sparked a confrontation the disgruntled officials barricaded themselves in City Hall and wait deployed the state militia the matter was decided in the courts without bloodshed but Smith had in the crisis many Stu have been deputized as part of a special police force called up by the mayor of Denver to defend City Hall the reform-minded governor started shutting down Denver's illegal gambling but Smith managed to even benefit from that as a special deputy he would raid his own underground gambling establishments forcing the customers to flee leaving the money that they had bet behind but there was another opportunity about to open up in 1896 gold was discovered in the Klondike region of Canada's Yukon Territory Soapy's have the draw of miners the remote territory is a golden opportunity as the newspaper the San Francisco call described it then he went to Alaska and from the moment of his arrival there his record was one of crime and violence so p.m. members of his gang moved to Skagway a muddy boomtown port in Alaska that was one of the few gateways to the Klondike he was nearly lawless in disputed territory between the u.s. and Canada bustling with hordes of adventurers hoping to strike it rich all the men that soapy and his gang hoped to separate from their money used all the tricks he'd learned in Denver they became a leading citizen defended local businessmen donated to civic causes and was charitable to the poor even if he was the reason that they were poor newspapers branded him the uncrowned king of Skagway his gang fleets the crowds with shell games at three-card Monte his steers met them at the docks posing his ministers or grizzled veteran miners offering advice that led them to Soapy's gambling parlor or one of his dishonest businesses once you got off the boat you could go to the telegraph office and for for just $5.00 Telegraph your family that you had made it there safely if you were willing to wait around for another five dollars you could wait and hear their reply which would sometimes ask for money for some sort of emergency at home and for of course a small fee you could wire money to the family it was all fake one of Soapy's scams the telegraph wires just ran into the bay telegraph didn't actually reach gaghe way until 1901 those who complained had little recourse the only lawn town was one u.s. marshal and he was on Sophie's payroll when a vigilance committee arose to threaten his operation he raised the larger law-and-order society and intimidated them away when the spanish-american war started he created a local militia with him at its head on July 4th 1898 he wrote at their head in the town parade but the confidence man's gang took a step too far when they robbed a minor named John Douglas Stewart three days later Stewart was one of the first of the Klondike miners to be heading back to the US having actually struck at rich the gang parted him from his sack of gold by tricking him into a game of three-card Monte when he pulled it his sack of gold dust a gang member simply grabbed it and ran away this theft after so many upset the town for a specific reason robbing a successful miner was different than taking some greenhorns stake if word got out that miners would found gold were being robbed in Skagway the men about to return home might choose a different route depriving Skagway of their business on the evening of July 8th when a group of vigilantes met soapy took a rifle and went to confront them he was denied entry by Frank H Reed the town surveyor accounts differ as to what happened next neither man seems to have had deadly intent but after a short argument Smith shot Reid to the groin with his rifle and Reid shot Smith through the heart killing him instantly Smith's laugh words were reported to have been for God's sake don't shoot Reid died 12 days later he was treated like a hero by the people of Skagway who built a monument at his gravesite as for soapy Smith many people just want to chuck his corpse in the bay they finally did hold a ceremony but to the Methodist and Baptist minister refused to officiate the town wouldn't even let him be buried in consecrated ground he's buried just outside the cemetery his gang was rounded up and either arrested or run out of town it was a stunning reversal of fortune for the man who had led the 4th of July parade just four days earlier both Reid's and Smith's graves are now visited by tourists in Skagway the character of soapy Smith has been in several films in the 1941 Clark Gable film honky tonk was based on a biography of Smith although the studio was not allowed to use his name as a surprising legacy there is a charity costume ball held every year in Hollywood called the soapy Smith party and if you want a real legacy you can hire soapy Smith's great grandson Jeff Smith to give you a talk about his famous ancestor about whom he is an expert written a book and hopes to produce a feature film in me that's kind of hard to divide what kind of lesson we should take from the life of soapy Smith well he was a complicated man he was also generally described as a scoundrel and a very bad man certainly his story is a ripping yarn it's just fun to hear and his violent death a cautionary tale about the inevitable consequences of a life of crime newspapers at the time said of him he died with his boots on perhaps for someone like Jefferson Smith that's exactly the epitaph that he would have wanted I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between ten and fifteen minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes don't forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 939,825

Rating: 4.9419613 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, colorado, alaska, soapy smith

Id: -q5Ml9_-YNk

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020

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[u/craiger_123]

Nice video. There was a bar on Larimer Square called Soapy Smith's.

[u/Junkyard_Pope]

I first learned about Soapy from the Yukon Trail game

[u/zonker77]

History Guy is a great channel