"Big Ed" Burns in Cripple Creek - Story of robbing a dying man.

CHIEF OF CONS
The Morning Times
(Cripple Creek, Colorado)
February 15, 1896
Courtesy of Mitch Morrissey

ig Ed Burns robs a dying man?

     Mitch Morrissey, a Facebook friend and historian for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, found and published an interesting newspaper piece on "Big Ed" Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West. Burns was a confidence man and crime boss who is believed to have met Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith in Tombstone, Arizona, or one of the surrounding towns in 1882 where Burns was the boss of the top and bottom gang best known in and around the Benson area. Burns later joined Soapy in Denver and followed him to Creede and Alaska.
     In 1889 a man was shot and killed in the Palace Theatre which was run by Bat Masterson at 15th and Blake Streets in Denver. Burns and some of his men were in the house at the time and before the victim of the unknown assassin had breathed his last. Burns took the opportunity to rob the fallen man of a large diamond stud. Burns escaped the officers and before it was reported to Denver District Attorney Ledru R. Rhodes (1886-1889) he left Denver and was never punished for the offense.
     How much of the newspaper article is accurate? Below is the text of the newspaper article. Following the article is some research information I have found over the decades.

The Morning Times
Cripple Creek, Colorado
February 15, 1896

CHIEF OF “CONS.”

Big Jim Burns, Gold-Brick Swindler, Visits Cripple Creek and Sleeps in Jail.

     "Big" Ed Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West, was arrested last night by Officers Clark and Reynolds. Burns is known all over the United States, and has been known to turn a bunco trick in St. Louis and Chigago [Chicago] on the same day. He will do anything from robbing a coop to a gold brick swindle. He was in Leadville in the early days and was mixed up in a killing in Chicago. He has been chased out of all the larger cities in the West, but strange as it may seem, has only done about eight years all told. He usually has a gang of men around him that are as desperate as himself, and the community where they stop suffer greatly from the depredations inflicted by these men.
     In 1889 a man was shot and killed in the Palace theatre In Denver, which was then run by Bat Masterson. Burns and some of his men were in the house at the time and before the victim of the unknown assassin had breathed his last, Burns had robbed him of a large diamond stud. He escaped the officers and left the country and was never punished for the offense. He has been arrested for robbing hen roosts and selling brass bricks for solid gold.
     The brick scheme was worked by him more successfully than his other games, as he invariably caught his man at night and sold him the bricks under the shades of darkness. His appearance helped him on his scheme no [?] and when he was making a "front," would resemble a man of considerable means. He is about six feet one inch tall, has a rather good-looking face. His stomach is enormous and he weighs about 240 pounds. When he "lies up" for a front he wears a silk hat, a long Prince Albert coat, patent leather shoes and on his shirt front a cluster of diamonds. He also wears a very large diamond ring on his right little finger and carries a heavy gold headed cane in the same hand.
     When dressed thus, he is ready to sell gold bricks. When working this he stops at the best hotel in the city and becomes acquainted with all the prominent men stopping there. He picks out a man who he thinks is the easiest worked, and in confidence tells him about some gold bricks which he-owns. He don’t want to sell them, O no, but would like to borrow some money on them. The man would look at them and that night they would take the bricks in a grip and go out of the city limits to be away from prying eyes. Here they would open the grip, take out the bricks and with a file scrape the edges into a paper and take these to the city to have them tested. Of course the filings would be gold and the next night the money would be loaned. When the time expired for the bricks to be redeemed the man who held them took them to the mint or a jeweler to be sold, where he found their spurious nature. In the meantime Burns would be swelling around another part of the country on the money gained in this way.
     Where Burns has been for the past three years no one seems to know. He arrived yesterday morning and slept in jail last night. He arrived alone but his men are supposed to be on the way and they will be "landed" as soon as they arrive. The charge of vagrancy is placed against him and he will be given hours to leave. He says he came in from Pueblo, but it is thought he came from Oklahoma.

So how accurate is the Cripple Creek newspaper?

[The following information comes from Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel]

• Burns’ first known arrest in Denver was in June 1883. During a second arrest two months later, he escaped in handcuffs. 
• In 1887 while in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, he was arrested at least three times and was the defendant in the first recorded court case of the shell game in Los Angeles. 
• In Denver in late April, early May 1889, Burns received fifteen days for stealing a valise. 
• Within two months he was arrested for waving a pistol around on 32nd and Holladay streets, vowing to shoot someone. His wife had run off with another man, and he was searching for them. 
• In 1890 Burns was in Denver where he was known as a smooth operator. On July 16, 1890, Chief of Detectives Loar gave him twenty-four hours to leave the city [note that I do not include the 1889 dying man robbery. I did not find the story in Denver newspapers]. 
• Burns then vanished until 1892 when he showed up in Creede, probably as a member of the soap gang. He dropped in and out of the gang as he traveled around the state. 
• In February 1896 he was with Jeff and “ten fierce men” when arrested for vagrancy in Cripple Creek and ordered to leave [this is likely the foundation of the newspaper article in The Morning Times]. 
• On March 10, 1896, in Denver, he witnessed the saloon shooting of Aquilla “Dick” Hawkins. The Denver Evening Post wrote, “He was never suspected of earning a dollar honestly, and was always regarded as a crook who might be guilty of committing any crime from petite larceny to murder.”

MY THOUGHTS

For the most part the Morning Times article is accurate in regards to Burns' past in Chicago, Leadville, etc. It's hard for me to accept the story regarding the Palace Theater and Burns' robbery of the dying man, based on the lack of a Denver newspaper confirmation. I'm not saying it didn't happen though. The date and vagrancy charge is true, but something the newspaper missed is that Burns was traveling with Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith who apparently escaped notice in the papers.

Visit the Soapy Smith Soap Box blog

 

Nov 13, 2009
Feb 10, 2010
May 20, 2010
Sep 12, 2010
Apr 07, 2011
Apr 04, 2020

"Big Ed" Burns: pages 43, 77-79, 101-02, 120, 176, 210, 405, 487, 489, 571.

"Horse sense is a good judgment which keeps horses from betting on people."

—W.C. Fields

ROMANCE IN MINING: Joe Simmons, as honest a dealer as ever took in a sucker, 1892

"He never used a brace-box with a real sport.
Them he kept under his seat for tenderfeet."
The World
May 15, 1892

(Click image to enlarge)

 

 

 

oe Simmons, as honest a dealer as ever took in a sucker."

A great article on Creede, Colorado and the demise of "Gambler Joe" Simmons, Soap Gang member and friend of Soapy Smith, posted in the May 15, 1892 issue of The World (New York).

 

The newspaper story was originally published in the Chicago Times by Carter Harrison, owner of the newspaper, and former/future mayor of Chicago, who had paid Creede a visit and decided to write about it. Soapy had apparently known Harrison previously, though Harrison either denied it, or had not remembered. They met up and spoke during this visit. Later, in October 1893, Soapy and his wife Mary went to Chicago for the World Columbian Exposition (1893 World's Fair), and as Harrison had been reelected Mayor of Chicago in 1893, it stands to reason that if Soapy had any interests in possibly making Chicago his new home, he would work to meet with Harrison once again. Soapy was well aware of the mayor’s support of wide-open gambling, prostitution, and liquor, the very things Denver officials (Soapy's primary home-base) sought to shut down. Allowed to operate in Chicago were “saloons and gambling houses, protected bunco steerers and confidence men and brace games of all kinds without hindrance.” As the mayor once declared, “You can’t make people moral by ordinances and it is no use trying. This is a free town.” No doubt, Soapy found Chicago very enticing. He knew that Mayor Harrison maintained close ties with longtime Chicago crime boss Michael Cassius McDonald. “King Mike,” as he was known, was the main man Jeff would have had to see if he wanted a place in the mostly Irish underworld gambling domain. It cannot be ignored as simple coincidence, that Soapy's wife, Mary Eva Noonan was Irish, both her parents having come from Ireland.  More on Harrison below.

Following is the transcribed content of the article.

 

 

ROMANCE IN MINING.
—
The Bright Side of the Gold-Seeker’s Hard and Adventurous Life.
—
GLIMPSES OF CREEDE AND THE FEVERISH EXISTENCE THERE.
—
A Boston Tenderfoot Who Fooled Four Shrewd Old-Timers.
—
A Bit of Coarse Thread That Exposed the Secret of a Salted Shaft—An Entertaining Peep Behind the Scenes of a Mining Camp Theater—Oddities of Animal Life in Abandoned Mines Where Flies and Rattlesnakes Turn White—Recollections of Pat Casey, Who Made a Fortune in the Black Hills—With a Number of Graphic Illustrations by “World” Artists.

      [Carter Harrison in Chicago Times.]
      A couple of hours before nightfall we were at Creede. I would like to describe so my readers may comprehend this wonderful camp.

But here my muse her wing main course,
flights are far beyond her power. ①

      A new world and new revelations were opened before me. A world where man is seen in his naked individuality, stripped of every longing except greed and of every care except self-protection; where conventionalities are all left behind in the home whence, he came; when greed pushes him forward in fierce struggle for gain by day and wild revelry and debauch is his rule by night. There is no groveling[sic] sottishness and no cowardly lying in wait for murder. Men meet and crowd together in pursuit of quick gain or frolic; for gambling, drinking and dancing are handed down by tradition of the past as the pastimes of the miner and gold-seeker. These things are sought, not from any innate depravity or particular love of the amusement, but because they have come down with the unwritten legends from all hot mining camps since ‘49.
     Money is expended to assist an unfortunate one in need, and they bullet’s whisk tells that cheating has been detected and a knockdown or an impromptu duel, a Poutrance, avenges a chip falsely raked in. All Phases of life extend from the sublime to the ridiculous. The philanthropist and the beggar are on a plane of equality; the millionaire and the fakir, the minister of the Gospel and the gambler; the keen merchant, deeply imbued with a knowledge of profit, and the freebooter, who demands your money or your life, and is apparently indifferent as to which he gets. These all meet day and night.

     

Drinking at the grave
The burial of "Gambler" Joe Simmons
The World
May 15, 1892

 (Click image to enlarge)

 

     At the public eating-table you elbow a modest-looking man who has to his credit thirteen killed and yet never actually sought a quarrel, but who, when in one, knows but one way out. By his side sits a man with wild, greedy eye, a hectic cheek, and a cough from his inner caverns. The one and the other is after a rich gulch or a grave. A few days before our arrival a couple of preachers came into camp, and seeing the fearful depravity of the entourage, begged for a chance to preach. The tent house of worship had not been built. The use of a large gambling hall was accorded them for fifteen minutes, a verse was read, a few earnest remarks were given, and a prayer offered up, followed by the amen! The hush of fifteen minutes was immediately over; The shrill call of “forty-seven!” blended with the unctuous “Amen,” and then the cry of “keno!” and the clatter of “Give me back those chips,” and the retort, “You've got ‘em,” — you,” made part of the bustle and confusion of a typical mining camp gambling den.
     A night spent without the noise of gun-play and the rush to see who has died with his boots on occasions remark, but the hiss of the speeding bullet is forgotten before morning.

     

[The following portion of this newspaper article is written with intentional grammar errors and slang, with the intention of trying to capture and mimic Soapy’s southern drawl and personality. I chose to not add in (sic) "spelled incorrectly" as it would ruin the charm.]

 

     Soapy Smith saw me passing and asked me into is fine saloon. He said he had voted for me once.

     “what year was it I let you out?” I asked. Joke did not hurt his feelings. He gave me an account of the funeral of his friend Joe Simmons, a few days prior to our coming. Joe had often been his pal and was lately his chief dealer at the green table. “Joe said he was dying,” said Soapy, and there was a suspicion of dew in his eye.
     "I said, 'Oh, no, Joe! You'll rake in many a red yet before you go over the range.'"
     “Don't lie to me, Jeff,' says he. 'I know I'm dyin'; my last chip is ‘bout to be cashed, and I want to say good-by. Don't let none of ‘em preach over me, Jeff —none of them tramp preachers. No? That's right good of ye. Just lay me out and drink to my health over the range, if there’s another side to it. Good-by, old pard, I'm off.' And sure enough he jess shut his eyes like he was watching the kards as they dropped out of the case; and when he know’d he’d coppered the ace he jess shot over the hill.
     We tuk him up the trail and dug a hole where he can look at the 'last chance' when Gabriel will give his last toot. We dropt the box intar the hole. I tuk off my headgear and I says, says I; ‘My friends'— there was just a twelve of us, and me; I made the baker's dozen— 'you all know’d Joe. He was as true as a eight-ounce nugget with a toch of quartz to bring out the shine. He never used a brace-box with a real sport. Them he kept under his seat for tenderfeet. An’ he was right. What's a Tenderfoot made for ‘cept to fill the pay when the color runs low? That's what they come into the gulch fur. But if any of the ye says he didn't deal square among friends it's a — lie. Friends, I an't much of a speaker, but Joe didn't want no splutter at his funeral. He said to me: 'Jeff, don't make no fuss with your jaw, but just skip rip the necks off’n a dozen and drink to me on my last tramp over the range.' Now, let's refill as honest men and good Christians his last wish and thirteen corks shot out and thirteen cracks rung a volley, and I said; ‘here's to the health of Joe Simmons, as honest a dealer as ever took in a sucker.’ We put the necks to our lips and poured down the last drop an’ planted the bottles on the grave. Wasn't that a real sent-off for a true spirit in a gulch?”
     Soapy asked me to drink, but I had not been at the still when the stuff run out, so declined, but I took a cigar from a box with two Government stamps. I have a suspicion the cigars were put in since the stamps were broken.
     Soapy said he would be in Chicago next year to help me make World's Fair Mayor I warned him not to let Hemp know it or he'd be run in. “Oh, shucks! Chicago is right now. Hemp knows it.② Besides no Mayor can quit me but you, and you won't do it until you've been in the chair a whole month.”
     

THE CREEDE BALLET.
The World
May 15, 1892
Not part of the article
 I wrote about but I
liked the drawing just
knowing that likely
none of the girls were
professional ballerinas

 (Click image to enlarge)

 

When we first run into the station my eyes were amazed at seeing a mighty lumber-yard turn by magic into a city of fresh-cut boards. Not a house was painted except those of the Cyprians. That is their sign. A band of music welcomed us on the platform—the only one in town—the orchestra of the theater just opened. A committee of forty bled into our ear. We were to be driven through the city in the only hack owned, and “would we make the people silver speeches at 8?”
     What's a town! New board houses everywhere, stuck in crevices of crags, perched on mountain sides, and propped up to keep them from sliding down; houses built on posts over the river. Its stream was hidden, but it's ripple was everywhere heard under the doors, houses sticking corners and stoops cut into the narrow streets; houses part boards and part canvas; one-story houses and two-story houses; some so frail that a drunken man could not lean against them, and houses with bay windows to second stories looking pretty and substantial. Every prospector is a squatter or the tenant of or purchaser from a squatter except on a patch taken by the school commissioners and sold the week before, sold at auction and realizing in a day's sale $185,000. This huge sum arose from a piece of land not worth last November as much as the piece of sky hanging over it. The town, or rather the three towns—old Creede, Jimtown (corruption for Gintown) and South Creede—with additions, had last November less than a dozen log huts, stuck in under overhanging precipices, occupied by a few dozen booted and hungry prospectors, but now has a population of from 5,000 to 7,000, with several banks, an electric plant, four or five newspapers, two or three post-offices, several hotels (one with seventy-five rooms), several wholesale stores doing a big business with the outlying districts. Last year a whole month’s cancellation of letter stamps amounted to 115. In February of this year about 5,000 letters were mailed.
     I asked of the owner of an extemporized sawmill, who was sawing up a two-foot log just yelled: “What will be done with those green boards?”
     “Build houses before night and save insurance. These boards are warranted proof against for a month, and that's something when insurance is 12 per cent.”
     I went into a heavily stocked general store, 20 by 110 feet. It was one of two stores of a handsome two-story house. The owner told me he purchased his lot Feb 8 and was now doing a heavy wholesale trade getting big rent for the rest of his house. This is only a sample of many. Last fall the railroad entered the place; now the receipts for freight are about $3,000 a day and the shipments of ore are from 90 to 100 tons. This will be greatly increased when the snow ceases to whiten the ground.

More on Carter Harrison:

 

 

Carter Henry Harrison Sr.
Frontispiece from A Summer's Outing, 1891.
circa 1890
colorized by Jeff Smith

 (Click image to enlarge)

 

 

Carter Henry Harrison Sr. (February 15, 1825 – October 28, 1893) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1879 until 1887; he was subsequently elected to a fifth term in 1893 but was assassinated before completing the term. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives. Harrison was the first cousin twice removed of President William Henry Harrison, whose grandson, Benjamin Harrison, had also been president until just months prior to the assassination. Harrison was known to refer to Chicago as his "bride." He supported a “wide-open” policy, meaning gambling, saloons, etc., were allowed to run without trouble or inte3rference from the city government. Harrison's tenure as mayor formally ended on April 18, 1887. Harrison unsuccessfully sought to stage a comeback, running in the 1891 Chicago mayoral election. Harrison was re-elected mayor in 1893, in time for the World's Columbian Exposition being held in the city. Harrison's career and assassination are closely connected with the World's Columbian Exposition, and are discussed at some length as a subplot to the two main stories (about the fair and serial killer H. H. Holmes) in Erik Larson's best-selling 2003 non-fiction book The Devil in the White City.③

 

NOTES:
① Tam O’Shanter, by Robert Burns (1759–1796)
② “Hemp” is Hempstead Washburne, Chicago mayor, 1891-1893.

③ Wikipedia: Carter Harrison Sr.

TRIVIA:

Sylvester Scovel who had befriended Soapy in Skagway, Alaska worked for The World newspaper, the center piece of this post, as a Correspondent.

Carter Henry Harrison: 

March 9, 2010

 

Chicago:

February 11, 2010

February 12, 2010

March 9, 2010

June 7, 2010

October 6, 2011 

September 22, 2012

December 7, 2017

 

"Gambler Joe" Simmons:

October 17, 2008

April 20, 2010

April 7, 2011

April 21, 2011

August 23, 2013

December 22, 2015

March 25, 2019

January 9, 2021 

Carter Henry Harrison: pages 282-83. 

Chicago (including World Columbian Exposition): pages 34, 42-43, 77-78, 86, 90, 92, 106, 109, 121, 138, 152, 197, 238, 253-54, 277, 281-83, 286, 288, 295, 299, 330-31, 333, 386, 391, 407, 475, 574, 579.

Joe "Gambler Joe" Simmons: pages 33, 89, 131, 210, 214, 225-29, 273, 594.

"Nine gamblers could not feed a single rooster."

—Yugoslav proverb

First annual Soapy Smith Wake at the Wizard's Club of Chicago.

he year 2012 had four "wakes" held in Soapy Smith's honor. The newest wake, the first, and hopefully, annual, Soapy Smith wake was held in Chicago, Illinois at the Wizard's Club, in combination with the organizations 80th Anniversary Party. The Wake was hosted by professional magician, and big Soapy fan, Keith Cobb, who attended the annual event every year at the Magic Castle. Keith decided Chicago needed its own event, and considering Soapy had traveled to Chicago on several occasions it certainly warrants a party of its own.
      The above video was edited and placed on Youtube by Keith, who stated that it was late due to technical issues with the video. We are happy to see that Keith was able to fix the problems and show us how much fun everyone had in Chicago. Keith is such a big fan of Soapy's that he used to travel from Chicago to Hollywood just for the Soapy Smith Night event held annually at the Magic Castle. We here at the Soapy Smith Preservation Trust are very proud of Keith's accomplishments in his personal business ventures as well as his honoring Soapy in such a grand way. If you have not done so yet I think some encouragement and thanks are due him!
      I would like to personally thank Keith Cobb for his wonderful devotion. He had some magnificent plans and saw them through. I would also like to thank the Wizard's Club of Chicago for allowing the Soapy Smith wake to coincide with their own anniversary. I hope we can work together to make this event an annual one.   

Links and sources
The Grifter: Home
The Grifter: Soapy wake advertisement
The Grifters Gameroom: Home     

The Wizard's Club of Chicago: Home

 








Keith Cobb
June 2, 2012
December 31, 2011
June 15, 2011
June 29, 2010
July 16, 2008

"He is genial and generous, enjoys a fight, pays his debts, gives his last dollar to whoever wants it and steals the first dollar the next man is rash enough to expose to view."

—Henry James, San Francisco Call, February 27, 1898.