Soapy Smith shoots up 14th and Glenarm streets in Denver, 1894.

 

 

he colonel swore he thought the cartridges were blanks and went laughingly on his way.

      An unknown Denver newspaper, dated "July 1893," clipped out and saved by Soapy Smith himself. This comes from my cousin, Jefferson R. “Little Randy” Smith collection.

WAS SURGEON’S DAY

The Red Fire Cracker Cut Many Red Tricks.

KEPT THINGS GOING WARMLY

Disasters Began Long Before the Fourth Dawned Luridly.

NUMEROUS SERIOUS ACCIDENTS

Colonel Jefferson Randolph Smith Turned Loose for Old Glory at 1 O’Clock A. M. —An Acrobat From Illinois Was Next Heard From—A Plumber at the Gumry and a Boy on Blake Street Patched Up by the Surgeon—The Worst Accident of the Day Happened at Rocky Mountain Lake—A Seven-Year-Old Boy Shot—Cannon, Crackers, Pistols, Explosives of All Description Get in Their Work.

      It was surgeon’s day at police headquarters. Unreliable toy cannons, stray bullets, erratic powder crackers, the booze of patriotism and other things incidental to a proper celebration of “The Fourth” furnished cases in plenty to Drs. Mack and Jarecki. The nation’s birthday anniversary began prematurely, so far as casualties marked it, by the sad death of John D. Mannix on Larimer street, soon after 10 o’clock Wednesday night. From that on the ambulance and …[sentence indecipherable]… to gather rust on their wheels and at midnight they were still making arbitraries. Not many arrests were recorded, owing to the tradition obtaining among police officials that the liberty of American citizens, particularly embryonic citizens, may verge toward license without much check on fire cracker day.

      About 1:15 o’clock a.m. notification that the [?] had been formally opened was telephoned to police headquarters from Fourteenth and Glenarm streets. It was a startling report that a man with black whiskers, a soft hat, a big revolver and a public—spirited jag, who looked like [words indecipherable] insurgent, had turned himself and his armament loose on the residents there.

It Was Only Jeff.

      An officer who went to investigate discovered that the author of the scare was Senor Colonel Jefferson Randolph Smith, amusing himself by shooting 45-caliber bullets through the windows of the Glenarm bar. The colonel swore he thought the cartridges were blanks and went laughingly on his way.

Fantasy depiction of Soapy shooting up the town

 

Apparently, Soapy was not arrested for the offense. Probably drunk, he had disturbed the peace, endangered public safety, and destroyed private property, and yet was seemingly allowed to go on his way. Did he privately recompense the owners of the Glenarm? Probably—unless Soapy thought he owed them the damage.

Visit the Soapy Smith Soap Box blog

 

 

Shooting up Denver: page 276.

"We must never forget that we are human, and as humans we dream, and when we dream we dream of money."

—"George Lang"
played by Ricky Jay, The Spanish Prisoner