Skagway, Alaska preparing for the 4th of July 1898

Skagway, Alaska
June 15, 1898
Broadway and Fourth Avenue
Courtesy of the Pat Hathaway Collection

(Click image to enlarge)

kagway prepares for the 4th of July

A very interesting photograph taken on June 15, 1898, looking north on Broadway from Fourth Avenue as the city prepares for the coming July 4th celebration and parade. Trees have been recently planted on Broadway, not seen in photographs taken the previous month. The rear of the Burkhard House (A) on the southwest corner of Broadway and Fifth shows the tops of the rear windows where soap gang member "Slim-Jim" Foster jumped out of, in a futile effort to escape his vigilante captors, holding him with the other primary members of the gang after the demise of their boss, Soapy Smith. That would not take place for another 24 days after this photograph was taken. Further down, on the north-west corner of Broadway and Holly Avenue, the Mondamin Hotel (B) can just be seen. Soapy lived in room #61 and his saloon, Jeff Smith's Parlor was two doors to the west. Flags and red, white and blue bunting can be seen adorning buildings as a man (C) holds a lengthy portion of bunting ready to drape the frontage of a building. 

"Do unto others what they’d like to do to you, but do it first."

—Alias Soapy Smith, p 15

JULY 25

1805: Aaron Burr visits New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.

1850: Harvard and Yale University freshmen compete in the first U.S. intercollegiate billiards match.

1850: Gold is discovered in the Rogue River, Oregon.

1853: Outlaw Joaquin Murrieta and four of his men are shot and killed by California Rangers at Cantua Creek in central California. Murrieta’s head is lopped off to bring back as proof in order to collect the $1,000 reward. The hand of Bernardino “Three-Fingered Jack” Garcia was also taken.

1854: The paper collar is patented by Walter Hunt.

1861: The Crittenden Resolution is passed by Congress. It calls for the U.S. Civil War to be fought to preserve the union, not over the slavery issue.

1865: The Fight at Platte Bridge begins near Fort Casper, Wyoming. Indian Chief Crazy Horse's decoy party of Sioux fails to draw out the soldiers. Instead he attacks the fort.

1866: Ulysses S. Grant is named General of the U.S. Army. He is the first American officer to hold the rank.

1868: Wyoming Territory is created from portions of Dakota and Utah Territories in the Organic act.

1871: Seth Wheeler patents perforated wrapping paper.

1878: Charles Earl “Black Bart” Bowles robs the Quincy-Oroville stage a mile from Berry Creek, California.

1880: Lieutenant Hurst enlists Virgil Earp, and his brother Wyatt and Morgan, to accompany him to the McLaury Ranch, Arizona Territory, to inform the McLaury family of the theft of six government mules.

1881: “Big Ed” Burns opens a saloon in Casa Grande, Arizona from which to swindle victims from the incoming trains. Once it was discovered what they were doing a mob forced them to leave town. Burns joins Soapy Smith's Soap Gang.

1881: Four Mexicans are killed by cow-boys at Sarampion, Arizona.

1882: Roy Bean mails a local newspaper a postcard announcing the opening of his new saloon, the first one west of the Pecos River, San Antonio, Texas.

1890: Soap Gang members Charlie Graff, John Bowers, F. M. Hamaum and Ira H. Curtis are arrested in a mock auction house at Seventeenth and Market Streets in Denver, Colorado, charged with fraud by Herman Llamer who purchased a cheap watch, and made to believe to be a gold one.

1891: Con man Soapy Smith’s mock auction houses, who sell fake gold watches to unsuspecting victims on the streets of Denver, Colorado, are so notoriously successful that policemen are placed in front of the establishments to warn potential victims.

1895: Bannock Indians surround 250 settlers near Jackson Hole, Wyoming until they are dispersed by the 9th Cavalry.

1901: Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan, avenges the 1896 death of his brother John Curry. Logan waited in Jim Wither's corral in Montana all night, and shot Wither when he stepped out to brush his teeth.