He Grew Tired Of Being A Cowboy And Went On To Become One Of The Most Infamous Con Men Of The Wild West
One of the most notorious con men in the history of the Wild West was “Soapy Smith,” the leader of a gang who made their living through clever schemes. They were quite successful until Soapy ran into trouble on July 8, 1898.
Soapy Smith was born Jefferson Randolph Smith in Georgia in 1860. He headed west when he was young to look for work and became a cowboy in Texas.
However, he soon grew tired of the arduous labor and low pay that came with the cowboy life. That was when he discovered how easy it was to scam people out of their hard-earned cash in rigged games.
His most lucrative con was what earned him the nickname of “Soapy.” For this scheme, he set up stands in the street selling bars of soap for $5 that were wrapped in blue tissue paper. He told the crowds that a few lucky individuals would find a $100 bill with their soap.
Of course, Smith knew which bars contained the cash, so the people who won the money were always members of his gang. Eventually, Smith was arrested for running this con. The officer who wrote up his report couldn’t remember his name, so he jotted down “Soapy” instead.
Another con of his was the “prehistoric man” of Creede, Colorado. It was one of his earliest frauds. Somehow, he got his hands on a 10-foot statue of a prehistoric-looking human and secretly buried it in a location near the town of Creede.
Later, he dug it up, pretending that he had discovered a rare artifact. His “discovery” garnered a lot of attention, and he started charging people to see it. Then, he left town before people could get suspicious.
In 1897, Smith headed to Skagway, Alaska, as part of the gold rush. With the influx of new miners and the lack of established laws in the remote area, he found that it was the perfect place to run his schemes.
At one point, he even set up a fake telegraph office and charged people to send messages to their loved ones back home. This was several years before Skagway got telegraph lines.
Max – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
The citizens of Skagway became angered by Smith’s fraudulent practices. They formed a vigilante committee that mostly consisted of miners in an attempt to establish law and order. Smith formed his own committee in retaliation.
On July 7, 1898, Smith’s gang stole a bag of gold worth more than $82,000 in today’s money from a miner named John Douglas Stewart. He reached out to the vigilante committee for help.
The next day, Smith tried to crash a vigilante meeting at the Juneau wharf. He hoped to convince them that he wasn’t a threat to the community.
However, he underestimated just how angry and fed up the vigilantes were. Frank Reid, a city engineer, confronted him, and a fight broke out between them.
Shots were fired, causing Smith to die instantly. Reid was badly wounded and took 12 days to succumb to his injury.
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