Man stabbed by Soapy Smith, but it's not con man Soapy Smith

"Stabbed last night by 'Soapy' Smith"
The Kansas City Times
Apr 4, 1894

(Click image to enlarge)

TABBED LAST NIGHT BY 'SOAPY' SMITH"
But it's not OUR Soapy Smith

 

 

 

Kansas City, Kansas had their own "Soapy" Smith to deal with.

 

 

BRIEF BITS OF CITY NEWS.

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A young fellow named James O'Keefe was stabbed last night by "Soapy" Smith, at the corner of Pacific avenue and Gillis street. "Soapy" drives a subscription wagon for the Star. O'Keefe is seriously wounded. The knife puncturing the left side below the ribs and entered the abdominal cavity. The wounded man was conveyed to the Central police station, where his wound was dressed by Surgeon Iuen. He lives at the corner of First and Gillis streets. The boy Smith made his escape after the affair, and at a late hour last night had not been found.

—

It seems Kansas City, Kansas had their own "Soapy" Smith to deal with.

While these newspaper accounts for the wrong Soapy Smith may seem unimportant, they are actually important to save as they can become the needed provenance when coming across future newspaper stories of "Soapy Smith" in Kansas.

"At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowed—four thousand gulden—and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me."

—Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Gambler, 1866