One of Soapy’s own inspired innovations was to open Skagway’s first telegraph office, charging new arrivals five dollars to send messages home. Skagway had no telegraph line at the time, but Soapy diligently dispatched their messages, and even provided phony replies — collect, of course.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Wild West magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

The first real trouble to be encountered by Smith occurred in March when an anonymous felon had the indelicacy to ‘accidentally’ kill a prostitute while in the process of robbing her in her own room. A colleague of hers named Mattie Silks panicked and fled, declaring that her friend had been murdered by one of Soapy’s goons. The news stirred a group of concerned citizens into action. After a meeting to discuss what should be done, they posted a notice:

In contemptuous response to the challenge, Smith called a meeting with his gang, and then drafted a poster of his own:

The daunting number of 317 referred to nothing more than the address of Jeff Smith’s Parlor — 317 Holly Street — but the ‘Committee of 101′ took no further action, and Smith confidently remarked in a letter to a friend in Seattle, ‘We have got them licked, and we mean to rule absolutely.’

While the Soap Gang conducted its criminal activities with greater discretion thereafter, Smith himself publicly flaunted his power and influence. He helped finance the building of Skagway’s first church. When the Spanish-American War broke out, he organized the ‘Skagway Guard,’ and wrote President William McKinley offering its services overseas. The president sent a letter praising ‘Captain’ Smith’s patriotism, and the secretary of war authorized Smith to drill his men at Fort St. Michael. Soapy had the latter framed and prominently displayed in his bar. On June 1, the Sitka Alaskan reported that ‘Company A, National Guard, Alaska, drills every night,’ a minor news item that hinted darkly at what purpose Smith may really have raised his militia for.

July 4, 1898, saw the 38-year-old Jefferson R., Smith at the height of his power, financing and leading the Fourth of July parade as grand marshal. By then, he was being referred to as the ‘Uncrowned King of Skagway,’ but his fiefdom was already changing. Its population had risen to 15,000, including merchants, craftsmen and restaurateurs. They were concerned about the way Skagway’s evil reputation, spread by the press, was costing it the business of passing immigrants, who were showing a preference for the rival port of Dyea, six miles up the coast. There were more wives in town, urging their men to crate a decent environment for their children.

On July 7, the catalyst that would ignite those forces came to town in the person of a sourdough named John D. Stewart. He had come from Dawson with 2,700 worth of gold dust. The next morning, he was looking for a place to change it into legal tender when he was met by the genial Old man Tripp, who warned him that Skagway was full of unscrupulous moneychangers and that only one man could be trusted to change his diggings to dollars without raking off an exorbitant commission. Tripp then took Stewart to Jeff Smith’s Parlor.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to