On this day, July 8, in 1898, the king of the frontier con was shot by vigilantes.
Soapy Smith’s gang of swindlers ran their rackets across the West. Soapy earned his nickname through his “Prize Package Soap Sell.” He would set up a display on a street corner, announce that their was a $100 bill inside a bar of soap, mix it in a pile of soap bars and sell the cakes for $1.
For 20 years, this and other scams, helped finance Soapy’s criminal operations by paying graft to police, judges and politicians.
Soapy was killed in Skagway, Alaska, after his men swindled a sack of gold from a Klondike miner in a game of three-card monte.
-Scott McCabe
