"That Fiend in Hell": Soapy Smith in Legend

by Catherine Holder Spude

As the Klondike gold rush peaked in spring 1898, adventurers and gamblers rubbed shoulders with town-builders and gold-panners in Skagway, Alaska. The flow of riches lured confidence men, too—among them Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith (1860–98), who with an entourage of “bunco-men” conned and robbed the stampeders. Soapy, though, a common enough criminal, would go down in legend as the Robin Hood of Alaska, the “uncrowned king of Skagway,” remembered for his charm and generosity, even for calming a lynch mob. When the Fourth of July was celebrated in ’98, he supposedly led the parade. Then, a few days later, he was dead, killed in a shootout over a card game.

With Smith’s death, Skagway rid itself of crime forever. Or at least, so the story goes. Journalists immediately cast him as a martyr whose death redeemed a violent town. In fact, he was just a petty criminal and card shark, as Catherine Holder Spude proves definitively in “That Fiend in Hell”: Soapy Smith in Legend, a tour de force of historical debunking that documents Smith’s elevation to western hero. In sorting out the facts about this man and his death from fiction, Spude concludes that the actual Soapy was not the legendary “boss of Skagway,” nor was he killed by Frank Reid, as early historians supposed. She shows that even eyewitnesses who knew the truth later changed their stories to fit the myth.

But why? Tracking down some hundred retellings of the Soapy Smith story, Spude traces the efforts of Skagway’s boosters to reinforce a morality tale at the expense of a complex story of town-building and government formation. The idea that Smith’s death had made a lawless town safe served Skagway’s economic interests. Spude’s engaging deconstruction of Soapy’s story models deep research and skepticism crucial to understanding the history of the American frontier.

296 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2012

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m getting to an age now where things that agitate me as much as this book did are not worth the energy to dissect. The unnecessary length, repetitiveness, and misinterpretations, not to mention this odd axe the author seems to relentlessly grind have thoroughly exasperated me. On page 104, she needlessly labels Smith a “misanthrope.” On page 31, she claims that a newspaper description of Smith was meant to be “down right disparaging” because it mentions his full beard which was “seriously old-fashioned” and “raised the question of a city man’s suspicious character.” A brief glance at other men in the photographs in her own book would suggest that full beards were not unusual on the frontier, even in 1898. In the (wholly unnecessary) second half of the book, she flippantly explains away a succession of first person accounts that conflict with her due to self-interest or anti-American bias by Canadians.

But most aggravating of all, the author repeatedly demonstrates that she has very little knowledge of either the machine politics of the age or the conduct and methods of confidence men. Admittedly, the actors concerned in neither these subjects kept historical records on paper. It was their nature to avoid paper trails. But they are both central to understanding what role, if any, Soapy played in Skagway. Confidence men should not be lumped in with strong-arm thieves and gunmen (or “Toughs,” as the author calls them on page 92) like Billy the Kid or Jesse James. And just because nobody would have ever officially and legally named Soapy the Captain of a militia (as we’re told on page 52) does not mean that he didn’t organize one and position himself at their head for protection. At that time and in that place, were things rationalized, regularized, recorded and orderly? I don’t imagine anyone should think so. But this book has defied that expectation. I understand that the legend of Soapy Smith should be questioned and viewed with a critical eye, but the arguments presented here are as jerry-rigged as a boomtown city hall.

Now look how much you made me write.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

too much anger mixed with good historical facts - I couldn't finish.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just taken a trip to the Yukon/Klondike area, this was a great read. The author is a little repetitive at times, but her historical research seems very thorough. It was great to see how this legend took shape, and what the actual events probably were. Essential reading if you are an Alaska/Yukon Gold Rush history buff.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. I could not finish as too detailed and went over same topocs mutltiple times. I wish the book would have talked about what Soapy did while in Skagway and not just what he didn't. The book repeats itself and longer then needs be.