1898 OUTLAW BANDIT SOAPY SMITH SKAGWAY ALASKA AK SALOON BAR COWBOY PHOTO

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1898 OUTLAW BANDIT SOAPY SMITH SKAGWAY ALASKA AK SALOON BAR COWBOY PHOTO:
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Be sure to add me to your favorites list!5x7 PhotoOUTLAW \"SOAPY\" SMITH

Jefferson Randolph \"Soapy\" Smith II was born in Coweta County, Georgia, to a family of education and wealth. His grandfather was a plantation owner and his father a lawyer. The family met with financial ruin at the close of the American Civil War. In 1876 they moved to Round Rock, Texas, to start anew. Smith left his home shortly after the death of his mother, but not before witnessing the shooting of the outlaw Sam Bass.
It was in Fort Worth, Texas, that Smith began his career as a confidence man. He formed a close-knit, disciplined gang of shills and thieves to work for him. Soon he became a well-known crime boss, known as the \"king of the frontier con men\" his nickname in Denver, Colorado, where he sold 5 cent bars of soap for $5 each on the assurance that $10, $20 or even $100 bills had been inserted at random within the packages. An accomplice in the audience would throw down his $5 select a bar, and feverishly tear it open. Hey-presto out would pop a $100 bill! Needless to say, none of the suckers jostling one another to slap down their $5 ever unwrapped so much as a dime. Before long resentment oozed to the surface and Soapy was \"persuaded\" by the cops to leave town. The officer handling the case couldn\'t recall Smith\'s first name so his log entry read \"Soapy\" Smith.
Soapy surfaced in Skagway in 1897. Smith lost no time in setting up a saloon called \"Jeff\'s Place\". He enlisted a group of \"helpers\" (whom he called his \'lambs\'-presumably because they were professional fleecers) to keep excitable customers in check. Over the next few months, he established a range of nefarious \"business\" establishments the most notable of which was his Dominion Telegraph Service which purported to relay messages from the stampeders to their families back in Seattle or San Francisco. Responses from home were prompt, and most of them involved requests for money, which Soapy obligingly \"remitted\" on behalf of his customers. Few realised that the telegraph wires ran only a few hundred yards from his backdoor, before vanishing beneath the waters of the inlet.

Within a year Soapy Smith had the town and its officials in his back pocket. With the support of his mobsters, he assumed the mantle of Grand Marshall, led a Fourth of July parade with a brass band in attendance, and made a show of setting up a benefit fund for Skagway\'s widows-some of whose husbands had been permanently \'silenced by the lambs\'! Four days after the Parade, however, matters came to an abrupt climax.

Triggered by the vociferous indignation of a gold miner whose $2,800 poke had been stolen by Soapy\'s thugs, a ripple of alarm went through the town. Skagway had already been branded as the most lawless town in Alaska, and residents decided it was time to confront Soapy. A vigilante group - the Committee of 101 - was hastily formed with Frank Reid, a town engineer and surveyor, as its leader.

On July 8, 1898, Soapy after several drinks at Clancy\'s Bar met Reid at a muzzle to muzzle shoot-out at the dockside. Soapy\'s last words were a boozy, panic-stricken, \"For God\'s sake man, don\'t shoot!\" Too late. He was killed instantly, while Reid, also mortally wounded died twelve days later in hospital. Reid has an elaborate granite memorial in the Skagway cemetery, where the inscription reads, \"He gave his life for the honour of Skagway\". Soapy, aged 38, lies buried just beyond the cemetery boundaries in unconsecrated ground.OVER 30 SALOON PHOTO\'S IN OUR storeOVER 500 COWBOY PHOTO\'S IN OUR store2500 PHOTO\'S IN OUR store

This Rare Image is a NEW 5X7 PHOTOGRAPH Reprinted from an Old Photograph at a Professional Photo Lab. Quality of the Reprint depends on the quality of the Original. Photograph(s) will be mailed in a Clear Stiff Plastic Toploader and placed inside a Mailer.

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