Soapy Smith's Soap Box: January 2025

January 12, 2025

"Soapy" Smith arrested in Leadville, Colorado, May 1886

A Busted Honeymoon
Soapy Smith is arrested in Leadville, Colorado
Carbonate Chronicle
May 17, 1886
Courtesy of Colorado Historic Newspapers

(Click image to enlarge)

ew information regarding Soapy Smith in Leadville, Colorado.

A friend, Don Hendershot, found the above newspaper article. Following is the text of that article.

Carbonate Chronicle
Leadville, Colorado
May 17, 1886

A Busted Honeymoon.

"Soapy" Smith is at loggerheads with valley peelers, and in default of $1,000 bonds was sent to the locky. “Soapy” is the most notorious of the many street fakers who “shouted their bazoo” on the corners in Leadville, and his stand was a veritable bonanza to him. Each day found a new crop of idiots and dupes gathered about his lay-out, and while it found immunity in the peddlers’ license that the ordinance provided, it was the worst and most cold-blooded brace ever presented to an unsuspecting tenderfoot. There are few who are not familiar with the miniature cake of soap that was wrapped in a blue piece of paper and then cast in an open grip sack with scores of blanks to tempt the sucker. By a peculiar legerdermain [sic] “Soapy” fooled the knowing ones, and his profits in a day, at a dollar a grab or a half dozen for five dollars, should have made him independent in his youth. One unfortunate circumstance about “Soapy’s” incarceration at this time is that a short time ago he came to this city, and claiming a hand that had long been reaching for him, packed it away to Denver. The honeymoon is busted higher than a kite by the grand Jury, and the Leadville bride is a widow pro tem.

This is an important find for five reasons.

It is provenance that Soapy operated the prize package soap sell racket in Leadville, which previously had only been mentioned in a newspaper article (1888) that stated Soapy was a regular visitor to Leadville.
According to Soapy's cousin, Edwin Smith, Soapy settled for a time in Leadville. Older biographies describe how he started his career there, but no documentary evidence puts him there for any length of time. The perception of Jeff’s having lived and worked in Leadville probably stems from a 1920 interview that Edwin gave to The Trail magazine. The following paragraph from that interview addresses Jeff’s shift from hawker of “cheap John” goods to sleight-of-hand games. Edwin writes,
The change came after he left Round Rock, and Leadville was the lure that carried him away. The license on itinerate merchants killed his business, and the whole country was vibrant with news of the wonderful strikes in Colorado’s great Carbonate camp. So, with a thousand dollars in his pocket, Jeff “hit the road” for the enticing Colorado mountains when about 17 years old. He tried hard to persuade his cousin to accompany him on this venture, volunteering to pay his way, but to no avail. The Trail, 01/1920.
It is known that Soapy was in Leadville on July 21, 1880 when he and a partner had their photographs taken, but there is very little information currently known of that visit.
just fifteen days short of two years later (05/02/1888), the Leadville Herald Democrat mentioned Soapy.
One of the slickest and best known rascals in the whole western country is reported … on his way to Leadville…. The gentleman … —Soapy Smith—is known to many people in Leadville, as he has been here frequently, and always with … a small valise filled with small cakes of soap in little boxes, and a very pretty Mrs. Smith, who travels with him.
The “very pretty Mrs. Smith” is Soapy's wife Mary. He was married on February 1, 1885, and she is known to have traveled with her husband for a time.
According to the Los Angeles Daily Herald, January 12, 1896, Soapy was reported swindling people in Leadville in December 1888.
The article mentions the purchase of a [city] peddlers’ license which most of the time protected Soapy from arrest and/or prosecution.

Sapolio Soap
With blue label
Jeff Smith collection
The description of wrapping the soap cakes "in a blue piece of paper," is believed to be the blue advertising band around the Sapolio brand soap, in which he only needed to "insert" the currency prizes under the band, instead of unwrapping the soap packages and rewrapping them, as described in older biographies. Note that I placed quote marks around "insert." I did this because Soapy never actually inserted a cash prize into the soap wrapper.
It has always been assumed that Soapy operated swindles in Leadville, and this is the earliest provenance I have found of him actually doing so.
This is the only mention of an arrest in Leadville.