The Mondamin Hotel
Skagway, Alaska 1915
The red dot in the above photograph is on the east outside wall of the Mondamin Hotel at the corner of Holly Street (now 6th) and Broadway Avenue Skagway, Alaska about 1915. Room #61 of the Mondamin is where Soapy Smith lived, which just so happens to be just a few doors from Jeff Smith's Parlor (Soapy's main saloon). Several letters to Soapy in the family collection are addressed to "Rm. #61." The Eagles Fraternity in Skagway has the 1898 hotel register that shows Soapy's signature for the room, as well as John Douglas Stewart's on July 8. Stewart, you will recall, is the man who was robbed of his gold poke, which inadvertently caused Soapy's death.
I'm a peaceful man. Yuh just might uh heard uh me ... the professor with a high degree in the teachin' uh the evils uh games uh chance. I'm known far and wide, as mah whole plan in life's tuh demonstrate tuh people how gamblin's destructive tuh the human spirit an' bank account just by rubbin' their noses right in it. Prove to 'em how they can't win so's tuh send 'em back tuh their wives an' little children tuh sit by the hearthstone, better an' wiser for the experience.
Welcome Suckers, James David Buchanan
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