Synopses & Reviews
As the Klondike gold rush peaked in spring 1898, adventurers and gamblers rubbed shoulders with town-builders and gold-panners in Skagway, Alaska. The flow of riches lured confidence men, tooandmdash;among them Jefferson Randolph andldquo;Soapyandrdquo; Smith (1860andndash;98), who with an entourage of andldquo;bunco-menandrdquo; conned and robbed the stampeders. Soapy, though, a common enough criminal, would go down in legend as the Robin Hood of Alaska, the andldquo;uncrowned king of Skagway,andrdquo; remembered for his charm and generosity, even for calming a lynch mob. When the Fourth of July was celebrated in andrsquo;98, he supposedly led the parade. Then, a few days later, he was dead, killed in a shootout over a card game.
With Smithandrsquo;s death, Skagway rid itself of crime forever. Or at least, so the story goes. Journalists immediately cast him as a martyr whose death redeemed a violent town. In fact, he was just a petty criminal and card shark, as Catherine Holder Spude proves definitively in andldquo;That Fiend in Hellandrdquo;: Soapy Smith in Legend, a tour de force of historical debunking that documents Smithandrsquo;s elevation to western hero. In sorting out the facts about this man and his death from fiction, Spude concludes that the actual Soapy was not the legendary andldquo;boss of Skagway,andrdquo; nor was he killed by Frank Reid, as early historians supposed. She shows that even eyewitnesses who knew the truth later changed their stories to fit the myth.
But why? Tracking down some hundred retellings of the Soapy Smith story, Spude traces the efforts of Skagwayandrsquo;s boosters to reinforce a morality tale at the expense of a complex story of town-building and government formation. The idea that Smithandrsquo;s death had made a lawless town safe served Skagwayandrsquo;s economic interests. Spudeandrsquo;s engaging deconstruction of Soapyandrsquo;s story models deep research and skepticism crucial to understanding the history of the American frontier.
Review
andldquo;Catherine Holder Spudeandrsquo;s solidly researched book is original, engaging, and clearly written. She offers an interesting deconstruction not only of the Soapy Smith andlsquo;legendandrsquo; but also of frontier community building.andrdquo;
andmdash;Paul Andrew Hutton, author of
Phil Sheridan and His Army and The Custer ReaderReview
andquot;At least a dozen books scrutinize Soapy Smith, but andlsquo;That Fiend in Hellandrsquo; unravels in scholarly fashion the mythical story of Jefferson Randolph Smith, the king of western con men. Tracing theand#160;augmentation of the myth from source to source,and#160;Spude documents the elevation of a notorious, if charming, criminal into a legendary western hero.andrdquo;andmdash;Thomas J. Noel, coauthor of Historical Atlas of Colorado
Review
and#147;Catherine Holder Spudeand#8217;s research methods, focus, and narrative style combine into a work that is an exemplary model of what good history should be.and#8221; and#151;Troy D. Smith in Roundup Magazine
Synopsis
Jefferson Randolph andldquo;Soapyandrdquo; Smith (1860andndash;98), though, a common enough criminal, would go down in legend as the Robin Hood of Alaska, the andldquo;uncrowned king of Skagway,andrdquo; remembered for his charm and generosity, even for calming a lynch mob. When the Fourth of July was celebrated in andrsquo;98, he led the parade. Then, a few days later, he was dead, killed in a shootout over a card game.
About the Author
Catherine Holder Spude is author of andldquo;That Fiend in Hellandrdquo;: Soapy Smith in Legend and Sin and Grace: A Historical Novel of the Skagway, Alaska, Sporting Wars and coeditor of Eldorado! The Archaeology of Gold Mining in the Far North.