Soapy Smith souvenir spoon

Soapy Smith Spoon
American Historical Spoons: The American Story in Spoons
Page 273
1971

(Click image to enlarge)

oapy Smith souvenir spoon

In the late 1990s someone mailed me a xeroxed page from the book, American Historical Spoons: The American Story in Spoons, 1971. At the time, the photo was very poor and too dark to see, and the book title was not correct, so for the next 30 years I blindly sought that spoon and the book, finding neither, until recently.

In looking at the spoon and the description, I am left to ask, why is it called the "Soapy Smith" spoon?

"No one hates trouble more than I do. I would walk a block at any time to keep out of trouble."

—Soapy Smith
Forty Years of Hardware, 1924