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| THEN Engine #59 Broadway Avenue, Skagway circa 1900 |
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| NOW Engine #73 Along the White Pass circa 2011 |
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| Actors and Scenes in the Soapy Smith Tragedy |
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| Numbered for identification |
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| Larimer at 16th Street Denver, Colorado circa early 1880s |
"In 1859 when Denver was established as a city, it was little more than a rough, frontier settlement at the westward edge of the Great Plains. Its mainstay was freighting to and from the growing number of mines in the Rocky Mountains, the north-south base of which lay 15 miles west. When Jeff arrived 20 years later, with a population of 35,000, Denver was the nation’s 26th largest city, and streetcars and utilities were being introduced. In 1877 Denver boasted 3 train lines while most Western cities had but one. Between 1882 and 1884, the city hosted 3 Expositions of National Mining and Industry and had become known as The Metropolis of the Territories and The Queen City of the Plains. By the mid 1880s, 6 railroad lines conveyed a steady flow of passengers to and from the depot at the northwest end of Seventeenth Street, making the mile-high city the booming business center of Colorado. Yet growth was so rapid and the pace of development so burdened that the city’s infrastructure lagged far behind. For example, main streets to and from Denver’s Union Station remained unpaved until 1891, and civil services were seriously lacking, such as an adequate police force."
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| Captain David Legg Brainard 14th Infantry, US Army Skagway, Alaska 1898 |
David Brainard was born in 1856 in Norway, New York. On Sept. 13, 1876, 19-year-old David Brainard left home to travel to Philadelphia and view America's first successful world's fair, the Centennial Exposition. After taking in many marvels of the Machine Age, Brainard boarded a train for home. At New York City, he changed trains and reached into his pocket for money to buy a ticket, but there was none. Too proud to write his family for funds, Brainard took the free ferry to the US Army Post at Governor's Island and joined the Regular Army. He didn't know it, but David Brainard was on his wasy to becoming one of those rare individuals in military history who rose from Private to General by pulling himself up by his bootstraps.
When Brainard joined the Army, it had been only three months since Custer's command was mauled at the Little Big Horn, and in no time, Brainard was sent to Montana Territory, to serve with the Second Cavalry against the Northern Cheyenne and Sioux Indians. The square-jawed Brainard was a keen soldier, who firmly believed orders clearly issued should be obeyed.
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| David L. Brainard |
On May 7, 1877, Brainard participated in the Battle of Little Muddy Creek against the Sioux under Chief Lame Deer, and suffered wounds to his right hand and a gunshot wound to his right cheek, affecting his eye. Over half a century later, in 1933, he received the Purple Heart for his injuries.
He was a Captain in the 14th Infantry when he arrived in Skagway in February 1898. Captain Brainard was appointed Purchasing and Disbursing Officer of the Alaska Relief Expedition and was based in Dyea. Brainard’s relief expedition was intended to address the “sufferings” of the Dawson miners during the Alaskan Gold Rush, but they found the miners well supplied and needed no relief. He is most famous for being the last survivor (in 1935) of the United States’ Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-84), an ordeal of unimaginable hardship. Only six survivors were rescued in 1884 after being stranded in the Arctic for two years in the harshest conditions.
Brigadier General Brainard died at the age of 90 on March 22, 1946 in Washington D.C. and is buried in Arlington.
Friend Jeff:
Your letter received and very glad to hear from you. It would have pleased me much better had you stated that you were prospering. Well, Jeff, I am hanging on the raged [ragged] edge myself. The election went against me so far as the governor is concerned, but the ticket I supported elected the entire Arapahoe county delegation to the legislature and it looks now as though we may be able to get the city charter so amended as to abolish the fire and police board and let the right to control our city affairs revert back to the mayor. If this can be done it will be passed by the legislature in time for our April election and things may be as they used to be.
I have not seen Bascom [sic] since he was released after completing the year’s sentence. I hear of him, however, and always in some kind of trouble. He has been arrested twice of late for disturbance and discharging firearms down in the neighborhood of 20th and Market streets, and you know the kind of people who frequent that locality. If I were you I would advise him to leave here, as it is only a question of time until he will get a “settler” and every time the papers speak of him they generally say the brother of “Soapy” Smith, who was last heard of skinning suckers in Alaska. So you see you are not getting any the best of it.
I think Bruce will get out all right in time, but it will cost coin. He got into it by getting drunk with Jeff Argyle, “another good thing” as you know.
Bruce received a $100.00 already from Spokane collected in the Owl. You tell Brownie and St. Clair that, will you? Bruce is a poor writer and may not have acknowledged receipt of the money.
Well, Jeff, I wish you good luck,
Remember me to all friends you see.
As ever yours,W. B. Masterson
"It is a brilliant book well researched and I think your great grandfather was a very intelligent man, with his skill and backing from so many people is his group I think if he was alive and changed from what he did today he would have made a great president."
—Michael Murphy.
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| Click HERE to join |
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| Robert Bandhauer 17th and Market streets |
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| 17th Street at Larimer |
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| Union Station |
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| 17th Street 1880s Looking towards Wynkoop and the depot |
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| Union Station 1894 |
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| The original portion is plainly seen (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| More of the restoration (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| 17th and Market Streets, 2012 (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| 17th and Market Streets, 1890s |
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| 17th and Larimer Streets Showing the location of the Soapy Smith memorial plaque (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| Soapy Smith memorial plaque (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| Location of the memorial plaque and location where Chever block once stood (photo by Robert Bandhauer) |
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| (Click image to enlarge) |
Dear Jeff:In a 1920 interview cousin Edwin said Soapy's,
Your letters were gladly received. Always anxious to know how you are doing. You say you want me to send your permits. The letter to Col. Randall is all the permit the war department will give. That letter which I have already forwarded you grants you every concession you are after. I hope you will not get in any trouble with the minimums of the law.
Your brother Ed. B. Smith
"... intention seems to have been to seek an honorable fortune in the frozen north and then to return to Washington and establish himself in the respectable life of a hotel proprietor. His cousin made a vain effort to keep him out of Alaska, but he expressed the greatest confidence in the success of his schemes in that distant region and was intent upon going…. 'This ... is my last opportunity to make a big haul. Alaska is the last West. I know the character of people I shall meet there and I know that I am bound to succeed with them.'"
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| (Click image to enlarge) |
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| Note the writing on the back of the envelope. Soapy made notes where ever he could. (Click image to enlarge) |
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| The Sawdust Game (courtesy of The National Night Stick) |
Counterfeiting was an extremely lucrative crime in the nineteenth century, but it required skilled craftsmen and an intricate distribution network—it was not for amateurs. However, the "sawdust game," a confidence scam spawned by the success of counterfeiting invited amateurs. And it had the additional appeal of only swindling those who deserved to be swindled.
The sawdust game (also known as the “green goods game” or the ”boodle game”) was usually played in rural areas. A “circular” was printed up and mailed to men who were known to be attracted to lotteries and other get-rich-quick schemes. The form letters would flatter the recipient and mark him as a man well positioned to handle the goods in question, then provide a thinly veiled description of said goods:
“My business is not exactly legitimate, but the green articles I deal in are safe and profitable to handle. The sizes are ones, twos, fives, and tens. Do you understand? I cannot be plainer until I know you mean business, and if you conclude to answer this letter.”
If the mark responds to the letter he is directed to meet the writer at a specific address, it may be a disreputable saloon in his own town, or he may be directed to a hotel another city. There he will be met by a steerer who will lead him to the signatory of the letter. He is taken to another location, the “factory,” which could be in another city altogether. Here he is shown a sample of the”goods,” which will not actually be counterfeit but consist of crisp new legitimate bills. The mark may protest that they will not fool anyone, but inwardly he is amazed at how real they look. The “counterfeiters” make him an offer that, depending on the quantity, could be as low as six cents on the dollar.
The mark agrees and pays cash for his green goods, the bills are counted in his presence, bundled, and put into a bag. While they celebrate the transaction with a drink, and discuss future deals, one of the gang will switch the bag of cash for another. As he leaves, the mark is warned that, for everyone’s safety, he must not look inside the bag until he reaches his destination.
Of course, when the bag is opened, it is found to contain nothing but blank paper, or enough sawdust to give it the proper weight. He is left with no recourse; only a fool would tell the police he was swindled while trying to buy counterfeit money. In the words of Alan Pinkerton:
“It is safer than almost any other system of swindling, because it is practiced upon men, whose cupidity overcomes their judgment, and who in their desire to swindle others, become dupes themselves. For this reason the “sawdust swindler” invariably escapes punishment, as in order to arrest these men the victims are compelled to acknowledge their own dishonesty.”
In spite of the reluctance of victims to come forward, by the end of the century, sawdust game and its players were well known to police. This, however, did not seem to have any effect on the number dupes it attracted.
