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

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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.

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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

Soapy Smith in Parsons, Kansas, 1880

Soapy registers at the St. Elmo Hotel
Parsons, Kansas
Parsons Daily Eclipse
March 31, 1880

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arsons is a city in Labette County, Kansas. The town was named after Levi Parsons, president of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) Railroad. The town was founded in 1870 and incorporated the following year by the railroad. The location for the town was chosen because it was where the two branches of the railroad being built from Junction City, Kansas and Sedalia, Missouri would meet, and was on a ridge between Labette Creek and Little Labette Creek, which were soon dammed to provide a water source. The railroad commenced building a massive rail yard, foundry, and locomotive shop at Parsons, which for many years was the third largest railroad facility west of the Mississippi River with only Kansas City and Los Angeles being larger. Settlers from nearby towns uprooted and moved to Parsons, and new settlers arrived on every incoming train. Parsons soon became a major hub for several railroads including the Missouri Kansas & Texas Railroad, Parsons & Pacific Railroad, Kansas City & Pacific Railroad, and the Memphis, Kansas & Colorado Railroad. 

As Parsons was a large railroad town, my guess is that Soapy stopped over for a night or two, operated his swindles, and then got back on a train continuing on his way to other better prospects. I could not find anything on the St. Elmo Hotel. 

Parsons, Kansas
Forest Avenue (now Broadway Ave)
August 4, 1873
Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society

 

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Main and 18th Streets
Parsons, Kansas
Colorized postcard

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"When a gambler picks up a pack of cards or a pair of dice, he feels as though he has reduced an unmanageable world to a finite, visible and comprehensive size."

— Annabel Davis-Goff, The Literary Companion to Gambling