Was Soapy ever in Chitina, Alaska?

I have heard some whoopers in my years but until the author can come up with some really good sources this yarn takes the year end prize for the tallest tale. I found this won on Lost Treasure.com. The story that follows is by Anthony M. Belli from page 52 of the January, 2010 issue of Lost Treasure.

Incident at Chitina – A Gambler’s Lost Gold

UNORGANIZED BOROUGH/VALDEZ-CORDOVA–“Cort” Thompson (Cortez D. Thompson [Actual name: Corteze D. Thomson]) was a successful gambler. He and his wife, “Mattie” (Martha A. Silks), a madam in Denver’s red-light district, were both local celebrities during Denver’s boomtown era. It was during the height of the Alaskan Gold Rush that Cort bid his wife a farewell to go seek their family fortune in Alaska.

Cort had no intention of mining; his plan was to mine the miners through a series of crooked card games. For the most part his plan worked. Traveling from one gold boomtown to the next, Cort had accumulated roughly $50,000 in gold by running shady games. Then one night in Chitina, a copper mining and railroad camp, Cort had the misfortune of dealing to a local named “Soapy” Smith (Jefferson Randolph Smith).

That night Cort’s luck ran out. Soapy accused Cort of being a grifter and cheating him at cards. Cort defended his honor as best he could, but their gentlemanly discord suddenly turned into a wicked beating for which Cort was ill prepared. After regaining his wits, Cort not only got of Chitina as fast as he could, but out of Alaska as well. He didn’t stop until he reached Denver - without his gold.

Although Cort never returned to Alaska to claim his ill-gotten gains, he sometimes offered his own version of the events that night in Chitina. He explained it was his usual practice after arriving in any camp or town to secretly bury his gold somewhere on the outskirts of the village, just in case his ruse was exposed and he had to flee for his life.

Of course he carried enough gold on him to present himself to the locals as a freewheeling, successful gambler. And in those days there were plenty of young men working in local mines that, with enough liquor, were eager to engage “Lady Luck” in a friendly game. Perhaps Lady Luck will one day shine upon some treasure hunter and a gambler’s lost gold will be found somewhere on the outskirts of the ghost town of Chitina, population 100.

The author listed sources at the bottom of the article online but none could be found that contained this particular incident. Giving the author the benefit of the doubt I emailed in to question for sources on this story in hopes of finding out where it came from. It might perhaps be local folklore to boost tourism and give them something to talk about.

Chitina is 337 miles from Skagway ("as the crow flies") and according to the local chamber of commerce and what I could find online, the town began in the early 1900's as a supply town for the Kennicott Mine and Copper River Northwestern Railway. When copper prices began to decline, Chitina became a ghost town.

None of this takes into account what I and those who own a copy of my book already know about Mattie Silks and Cort Thompson's pre-adventures with Soapy in Denver and then their later trip to Alaska which ended in Mattie's accusations that Soapy was going to murder her. Cort was involved with Soapy in the shooting death of Cliff Sparks in Denver in 1892 (Alias Soapy Smith: p. 250 - 259) which led to bitter feelings. Unlike the story above Mattie and Cort went to Alaska together, traveling to the Klondike where the gold was not to Chitina. It was on their return trip to the states that Mattie ran into Soapy in Skagway and the ill feelings from the Denver days apparently still lingered within. It is probable that Soapy, who had been fighting tooth-and-nail to supress news of his past, saw Mattie as a threat to expose who he really was, the infamous confidence man of Colorado. Soapy made Mattie feel very unwelcome in Skagway, making her think she was to be murdered. You will have to read the book for the rest of the story...


For more information see Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel.

• Thomson, Corteze D. "Cort" 251, 255, 258-59, 507
• Silks, Mattie 258-59, 355, 505, 507-13
  

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