Soapy Smith
Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II (November 2, 1860 – July 8, 1898) was a famous con artist, saloon and gambling house proprietor, gangster and crime boss of the nineteenth century old west. He is most famous for having a major hand in the organized criminal operations of Denver, Colorado; Creede, Colorado; and Skagway, Alaska, from 1879 to 1898. His fame is partially due to the spectacular way in which he died in the shootout on Juneau Wharf.
Read more about Soapy Smith: Early Years, Career, The Prize Package Soap Racket, Criminal Boss of Denver, Colorado, Creede, Colorado, Back To Denver, Skagway, Alaska, and The Klondike Gold Rush, Death, The Soapy Smith Legend
Famous quotes containing the words soapy and/or smith:
“I have developed a visionary modern lyric, and, for it, an idiom in which I can write lyrically, colloquially, and dramatically. My subject is city life—with its sofas, hotel corridors, cinemas, underworlds, cardboard suitcases, self-willed buses, banknotes, soapy bathrooms, newspaper-filled parks; and its anguish, its enraged excitement, its great lonely joys.”
—Rosemary Tonks (b. 1932)
“For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into “the masses.” And where is the David who can slay this giant?”
—Lillian Smith (1897–1966)