Soapy Smith: King of the Frontier Con Men

By Frank C. Robertson and Beth Kay Harris

Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith was the slickest article that ever hit the West. He set up his tripod and suitcase on a Denver street corner in the 1880s and started his spiel. The "suckers" flocked around and got thoroughly taken. Everyone listened to Soapy and he began laying down his own brand of law, soon commanding a band of criminal characters whom he protected through his influence with politicians and policewomen on his payroll. He became America's first racketeer, eventually leading the Skagway underworld until a bullet ended his career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Braunfell Books
• Release date: Feb 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805231394

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

DEDICATION 3

List of Illustrations 4

Acknowledgments 6

Introduction 7

1 10

2 20

3 26

4 35

5 41

6 44

7 49

8 58

9 64

10 71

11 84

12 90

13 97

14 107

15 116

16 123

17 129

18 135

Appendix 140

Bibliography 148

BOOKS 148

MAGAZINES 149

NEWSPAPERS 150

SOAPY SMITH

KING OF THE FRONTIER CON MEN

BY

FRANK C. ROBERTSON

AND BETH KAY HARRIS

DEDICATION

To the two helpful gentlemen who are

responsible for our writing this book:

HOMER CROY and DON WARD

List of Illustrations

Burro Bridge, Creede

Zang’s Hotel, where Soapy Smith once lived

Bob Ford, killer of Jesse James

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Street scene, Creede, immediately after murder of Bob Ford, June 10, 1892

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION

Creede, Colorado, in 1890

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION

Creede, 1892

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION

Jimtown, Colorado, after the fire of 1892

Frank Reid’s house in Skagway, Alaska

Mob at City Hall, Denver, March 15, 1894

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION: PHOTO BY H. F. PEERSON & CO.

Street scene, Creede, 1892

Skagway’s Broadway, August, 1898

MERCALDO ARCHIVES

Lower Creede, 1892

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION: PHOTO BY W. H. JACKSON

Soapy Smith in the morgue, July 8, 1898

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION

Part of Soapy’s gang, before being shipped out of Skagway

DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY WESTERN COLLECTION

Soapy Smith in bar room (probably Creede)

Acknowledgments

WE ARE INDEBTED TO Mr. Homer Croy, world-famous author, for turning over to us the vast amount of material he has collected over the years about Soapy Smith and his times, for his sage advice, the books he has loaned us, and his general helpfulness. Also, to Mr. Forbes Parkhill, of Denver, Colorado; and to Mr. Don Ward, of Hastings House, New York, for his careful editing.

We also wish to acknowledge the kindness and courtesy of the staffs of the Western Museum of History and the Denver Public Library, and particularly Agnes Wright Spring.

Others who have contributed graciously to this project have been Mr. James Raymond Little, of Portland, Oregon, and Mr. Stanley K. Weaver and Judge Martha A. Nelson, both of Creede, Colorado.

Others too numerous to mention by name have lent encouragement and help, and to all of them we are deeply grateful.

FRANK S. ROBERTSON.

BETH KAY HARRIS.

Introduction

FACT AND LEGEND ARE HARD TO separate in the life of any prominent frontier character. The line down the middle is always blurred. If for a time he lived behind a badge legend tends to make him more heroic than he really was, and we read of a superman when the facts usually prove that his feet were clay right up to the hips. If he was an outlaw legend has him either a Robin Hood or a brute so vile he couldn’t atone for his sins by a millennium spent in a lake of brimstone. The facts indicate that most of them were scoundrels with streaks of human kindness like the stripes in a stick of peppermint candy.

One cannot research the lives of any of them without coming up against flat contradictions among those who have talked or written about them. One can only explore the times and choose that which seems the more reasonable; for each, to a degree, was a product of his time rather than an aberration from normal human nature.

One of the more inexplicable of them was Jefferson Randolph Smith, Jr., commonly known as Soapy Smith, confidence man par excellence, organizer of gangsters, master crook, and also self-styled patriot and protector of the godly and the needy. But much winnowing of the chaff does reveal a great many solid kernels of truth from the dross of fable. What emerges is a man of considerable intelligence with a conspicuous lack of scruples, a pleasing personality with as much color as a bogus diamond. He seized his times and wrestled life down by the horns. During his twenty years of activity no man proved himself more slippery.

During those times the motto of most men, from Wall Street down to the most remote frontier hamlet, was Get it while the getting is good. No man took the motto more to heart, and few with more success, than Soapy Smith.

The frontier naturally attracted the dregs of society, for it was virgin soil for their talents. Money was plentiful, and these men had one thing in common: they wanted money without having to work for it. If one had no more ambition than to be a successful panhandler it was still a paradise, for anybody would buy a bum a meal or a drink. Society accepted bums as the early trappers accepted lice—a natural part of existence.

The more virile of them used the gun, the knife, and the club to acquire the money they needed. The frontier was in a state of flux, and the law could be bent and stretched like an elastic band. Few men had the patience to take a law-enforcement job at low wages when the gold just across the river or over the ridge was beckoning. If a man lost his money, let him make another stake; no one had time to bother about him. Violence was part of the new way of life. Unless his crime was too heinous the thug had little to worry about. If he went too far, he might find himself dangling at the end of a rope before nightfall, but he seldom lingered in jail.

The thugs lived mostly along the Mississippi, they tended to unite in loosely organized bands, and they early learned that the safest victims were the transients from the East, moving on to the rich gold strikes of the West. Most of them had money, and as strangers they were easy prey.

In the new towns, fed by the mining and cattle industries, a new breed arose to succeed the thugs—the Western badman. Not all of them were robbers; many, indeed, were officers of the law who found it convenient and profitable to live behind a badge. A quick hand, a keen eye, and the courage to use a gun were the chief requirements. Since the jobs were easy to get and the opportunities unlimited, many of the smart outlaws sought them out. It is hard to tell which ones were more or less honest and which were utterly unscrupulous. Undoubtedly there were many of both kinds. The Civil War had produced a reckless and restless breed of men, such as the James and Younger boys; many a popeyed youngster read of their exploits and determined to emulate them. The West became overrun with them.

There were always some who believed in and longed for law and order, but the majority were in too much haste to make money to be bothered by the problems of civic virtue. Most of them soon learned that it was strictly up to themselves to hang onto what they had. Violence was too common to create much of a stir and the badmen roamed unchecked. Only when rivalries arose was the outlaw population considerably thinned out—by their own kind.

Then a new kind of parasite appeared, the confidence man and the bunco steerer who found it safer to depend on his wits to make his fortune, there being less risk of getting what brains he had shot out. In terms of total loot he was far more successful than the highwayman, for the lure of quick money made every adventurer a potential sucker.

Gambling was always wide open, and the gambler and con man alike let most of their winnings slip away over the green-baize tables, or lost them at the roulette wheels. Perhaps it was nature’s way of maintaining the balance. In nearly every frontier town the saloonkeeper was the most influential citizen and the most prosperous.

Into this virgin field of get rich quick stepped Soapy Smith, destined to be the most accomplished bunco man of his day. He was not long in learning the value of organization. The saloonkeeper was the key figure, for he needed a certain amount of protection—but not too much. This Soapy Smith was prepared to provide, and all he asked in return was the right to fleece the unwary. Soapy could put the right man in the right place at the right time, and free the frontier businessman from fear of both the badman and the reformer. Such things as gambling and prostitution were accepted as needful occupations, and Soapy liked to have them conducted in an orderly manner. At the same time he adopted the methods of the big-city bosses, looking after the widows and orphans and contributing to the local churches. He was a patriot who loved pomp and circumstance, and never considered himself an enemy of society, although he adhered rigidly to the code of his profession: Never give a sucker an even break.

Our frontier society has seldom, if ever, produced a more colorful or many-sided figure.

1

WHEN THE HERD OF TEXAS longhorns struck the first trail town on its northbound way, the two young cowboys, Jeff Smith and Joe Simons, held the herd while the older, thirstier hands rode in to celebrate. It was the youngsters’ first drive and, as greenhorns, still wet behind the ears, they were expected to curb their still half-formed appetites until the experienced men had a chance to satisfy their full-fledged ones.

According to legend, the cowboys always galloped into town in a wild headlong charge, shooting up the place and terrorizing the citizens, getting gloriously drunk and punishing the honkytonk girls unmercifully, ending up by getting themselves shot or landing in jail. No doubt that was true in some cases, but most of them actually were wide-eyed country boys, normally curious about the kind of life they had heard of but never known. Many of them carried in their pockets little Bibles given them by pious mothers, and for the most part viewed sin with disapproving eyes.

When the trail boss finally gave Jeff and Joe permission to go in and see the town, he gave them a fatherly warning to stay away from the girls and keep out of trouble. When they got there, a hard-eyed marshal looked them coolly up and down and told them to check their guns before they went any further, a note that added emphasis to the boss’s parting advice.

Awed and silent, Jeff Smith and his saddle pard looked at a street filled with cow ponies standing hipshot at the hitch rails, and they heard a few shouts from drunken cowboys, but no gunshots sent them scurrying to cover. They passed the swinging doors of saloons, but their first destination was a general store where they bought new shirts, pants, and underwear, for they had worn the clothes they had until they were ragged and dirty. With their bundles under their arms they looked up a barbershop, got their long, scraggly hair cut and the fuzz shaved from their faces. They replied proudly to the perfunctory questions of the barber that they were from Texas. After these ministrations they paid the barber and added fifteen cents for a hot bath each in the back room of the shop. Jeff was first to use the tub, a luxury he hadn’t known for weeks.

They came out in their store-bought clothes looking and feeling like new men, eager to see the town, and turned into the first saloon. Neither was accustomed to hard liquor, and for years Jeff Smith was to use it sparingly. In his deep, mellow voice Jeff ordered a couple of beers, and as they stood sipping them slowly and with relish, they looked about the room. Jeff’s eyes lighted up at the gambling games going on, for, though inexperienced, he was a gambler at heart. The faro game in particular appealed to him; all through his life his addiction to it was to keep him nearly broke.

You know, Joe, I’ve a notion to try a crack at that.

You’d only lose your money, and we ain’t got much, the cautious Joe replied. Let’s get out of here and see the town.

They saw men heading toward the boardwalk in front of the cribs where the girls worked, and joined the procession. They listened to the good-humored, vulgar banter, and their eyes dropped to the legs of the girls, clad in blue or red stockings below their knee-length skirts, and sometimes they caught a glimpse of a fancy garter above a shapely knee. It was all new to them, and they grinned self-consciously whenever a girl said, Hello, kid, you looking for a good time, this is the place.

Later, maybe, Jeff would respond, while Joe hung his head.

Only cost you a dollar. You can’t beat a bargain like that. I’ll treat you real nice.

Later, maybe, Jeff would repeat. They were boys who had been taught that adultery was a cardinal sin, and they were not yet ready to assert their manhood.

They wandered from saloon to saloon. Jeff was always more fascinated by the gambling paraphernalia than he was by the girls, but inevitably they found their way back to the boardwalk.

Glad you came back, a girl said, catching Jeff by the arm. You’ll never regret it.

Too early, Jeff said, releasing his arm with difficulty and walking on. Damned cheap skate, he heard the girl say.

Other girls accosted them, but they freed themselves and continued on. Either one alone might have yielded, but they were mutual chaperones, and both knew they couldn’t meet the other’s eyes after it was over. There was something too commercial about it, and both felt it would be their plunge on the downward road to hell. All his life Jeff Smith was to be wary of women. He would yield to them in time, but only when it served his purposes, not theirs. No woman would ever make a fool of Jeff Smith.

Tired and weary at last, and too full of beer, Jeff offered no objection when Joe said, Let’s get our horses and git back to camp. But they felt that they had seen something of the world, and they had lived.

The men had played poker with a greasy deck of cards coming up the trail, but they had no time for boys, and Jeff and Joe had been content to watch, learning the fundamentals of the game. Jeff’s eye had been the more critical, and he had watched the clumsy efforts of some of the men to cheat. He knew that if he was ever in a game he could do it more cleverly, and he flexed his long, supple fingers. Someday, he thought, he would try his luck, and he would win. But he needed practice. He had bought a deck of cards in a saloon and taken it with him without breaking the seal.

He had been sharp enough to see that some of the cards used in the gambling halls were marked, for the gamblers in their dark suits and white shirts invariably won from the trail hands when the stakes were high.

Jeff and Joe helped herd the cattle into the stockyards for sale, and willingly agreed to return to Texas for another drive. On the way, when they stopped to camp, Jeff opened his deck of cards and carefully marked some of them with his thumbnail. Then he practiced on Joe as they played on a blanket for beans. Never once did Joe catch on that Jeff could read the cards from their backs. Joe merely thought that Jeff was a more clever poker player. Jeff Smith was training himself to be the best one in the West.

Their return trip took them as far south as San Antonio. Here they heard that there was a circus in town, but only one boy could go. They cut the cards, honestly, to see which would go, and Jeff won.

This was the biggest city Jeff Smith had ever seen, but he followed the crowd to the circus. He strolled around, looking at the animals in their cages, charmed by the singsong spiels of the barkers. They were pretty good at it, but it was in Jeff’s mind that he could do better; they lacked what he had, imagination.

One spieler in particular attracted his attention. He was a short, stubby man with a clubfoot, dressed in dingy black. Jeff Smith didn’t know it, but he was on the verge of a new career.

Step right up, gentlemen, and flirt with Lady Luck, the spieler said. The hand is quicker than the eye. Now you see it, now you don’t. I have here three simple little walnut shells and one inoffensive little pea. All you have to do to win is guess which shell the little pea is under. Here it is, hiding right under the shell in the center. I put it down so, but there is no guarantee it will be there when I raise the shell. Anybody want to bet me it’s there?

Jeff stopped to watch. He watched the man’s hand carefully; the pea had to be under the middle shell, but he was not ready to bet.

A man stepped up and said, I’ll take that bet, mister. It’s under the middle shell.

You’re a brave man, friend, and unfortunately—for me—you win. He lifted the shell, exposing the pea, and handed the man five dollars. The man took his money and disappeared chuckling in the crowd.

I thought I had him fooled, the clubfooted man said, but I wish I could try him again. He shuffled the shells rapidly, and the watchers caught occasional glimpses of the pea.

Any of you other sports want to take a chance? I’m old and crippled and I have to make a living. You can’t win every time.

Another man stepped up and made his bet, and won. Jeff was sure the pea would be where the man said it was. I guess it’s not my day, but I still think the hand is quicker than the eye, the shell man said. How about you, young fellow? You look like you have a keen eye.

I’ll take a chance, Jeff said, and put up five dollars. He watched the cripple manipulate the shells and the pea, and said boldly, It’s under the middle again.

Clubfoot raised the shell and there was nothing there. It was under the one to the right. Fooled you that time, young fellow. Your eyesight must not be as good as I thought it was.

My eyesight is all right, Jeff said. I’ll bet you another five. The gambling fever was in his blood. If another man could win, he could.

Jeff lost three times in succession before he located the pea under the right shell. He was confident that he could win his money back. He bet again and again, but at the end of half an hour his pocketbook was empty, and