This week, Isaac and Demetria go back to the Wild West for our very first outlaw of the American frontier. There’s rootin’, there’s tootin’, there’s plenty of shootin’, and also a truly astonishing amount of…soap?
(Before anyone emails me with a correction: Yes, there are several technologies known as “wireless telegraphy” that could transmit telegraph signals without wires, but that is not what the fake telegraph office was doing.)
Featured Image: Soapy standing in a saloon in Skagway, Alaska (Image Source)
Jeff Smith’s Parlor in Skagway, Alaska (Image source)
The parlor in operation (Image source)
The Soap Gang in Skagway, Alaska (Image source)
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The vigilante group that fought against the Soap Gang in Alaska (Image source)
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The local newspaper’s report on Soapy’s death–the town’s name was originally spelled Skaguay but is now Skagway. (Image source)
A photograph of Soapy’s autopsy–I believe this is supposed to show the fatal bullet being removed from his heart. (Image source)
A shell game encounter at Soapy’s Saloon in the Yukon Trail game. (Image source)
A con artist running a prize soap scam in HBO’s Deadwood.
Magician Doc Dixon demonstrating the shell game for Penn and Teller.
Sources
- Jeff Smith’s website on Soapy Smith
- The Smith Family blog, with some amazing scans of correspondence and other records
- An article in the Pacific Monthly about Soapy
- Old West Swindlers, a book by Laurence Yadon and Robert Barr Smith
- The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum