by Howard Blum
In the midst of all this tumult, as new fortunes were being made every day, Soapy arrived. He found a makeshift town that to his excited eyes seemed to glow. The business district was nothing more than a field of mud that backed straight up to the rocky face of the canyon. And since there was nowhere else to go, the mountain served as the back wall for the many structures that were being hastily erected. With the clutter of lanterns hanging in these buildings, and with their bright kerosene light reflecting off the slick canyon walls, it struck Soapy as if a glowing sun were shining round the clock. “It’s all day in the daytime and there is no night in Creede,” he said happily. It was just his sort of wide-open, always jingling town. He had no illusion that it would grow to be another Denver. But he recognized what it could become, and he was determined to make it his.
IN THE weeks that followed, Soapy’s plan to make himself nothing less than the monarch of this high valley proceeded on several fronts. But his first order of business was to commission a map. It was an essential piece of intelligence. In order to take control, he’d need to know as accurately as possible all that lay out there.
On a sheet of Denver & Rio Grande Railroad stationery, a gang member dutifully sketched the layout of the town’s mines, stores, and gambling parlors, as well as the names of their owners. And on the top of this crude diagram, he penciled in the observation “Last chance / everything taken.” Yet neither this information nor the long list of owners discouraged Soapy. Rather, he took the warning in stride. It just meant that now Soapy knew whom he need to trump.
And largely he did. He employed a variety of slippery methods. In a town where most prospectors believed that they were on the verge of a big strike if only they could find the funds to carry them through another six months, anyone with cash could make an opportune deal. But a swindler with large promises and a stack of phony checks could make a real killing. Soapy would target down-at-the-heels mine owners, convince them to sign over a controlling interest in return for a generous sum, and dutifully write an exorbitant check on a nonexistent account. When they discovered the check couldn’t be cashed, he’d offer up a flock of intricate excuses until Cap Light and a few other bruisers would come calling. At that tense point in the negotiations, even the most enraged miner would realize that it would be better to walk away holding a quarter interest in the claim than not to walk away at all. Another well-practiced ploy was to lure the unsuspecting miner into a gaffed game of cards or dice. Inevitably, the mark would lose all his money; and Soapy, a gracious winner, would offer to wager his entire pile against a single scrap of paper—the deed to the mine. Talk about a lucky streak! Once more Soapy would draw the winning hand. These gambits, along with some actual cash purchases, helped Soapy acquire not only mines and tracts of wilderness acres but several dozen additional properties—most of Cliff and Wall streets, a hotel, at least a dozen saloons and gambling parlors, and a dwelling lot where he one day hoped to build a home for his wife and children.
But it was when the state officials arrived in Creede to auction off large parcels of school land—properties owned by Colorado whose sale would fund statewide school construction—that Soapy proved his most ingenious. A forty-foot circus tent had been erected, and it was crowded with investors from all over the West who’d come to take advantage of the opportunity to purchase land on the cheap in a boomtown. The sale went quickly; there was a good deal of hot, competitive bidding. It was only when a particularly choice lot was offered that one of the handful of attractive women scattered about the crowd would join in. Soon as she made her bid, shouts would break out. “Give it to the woman!” “Let her have it!” “Don’t overbid her!” And the well-heeled out-of-towners, gallant as well as fearful of the consequences of any perceived ungentlemanly behavior in a rough-and-tumble mining camp, would acquiesce. The ladies succeeded in purchasing every parcel on which they bid. Only after the leases were signed and delivered did the losing bidders learn that both the women and their vocal supporters were employees of Soapy’s. As the Rocky Mountain News reported, “Soapy outwitted the authorities, buncoed the state and school fund, and pulled the wool over the keen eye of Governor John L. Routt to the tune of several thousand dollars. The women in loose flowing scarlet robes and glib tongues were acting as cappers for the far-sighted Soapy, and the title of the cream of Creede realty will soon be vested in Jeff T. Smith.”
NOW THAT he was the town’s largest property owner, Soapy naturally enough wanted assurances that the police and city government would work diligently to protect his investments. So he stuffed ballot boxes, called in favors, grandly canceled several gambling debts, and even padded a few pockets. As a result of these artful manipulations, Creede wound up having officials whose first and foremost allegiance was to Soapy.
Cap Light, a longtime Soap gang tough guy, was appointed the town marshal. He had two obvious qualifications for the job: He had gunned down four men in Texas, and he was Soapy’s brother-in-law. It was a pedigree that discouraged most arguments. Just the sight of Cap, his chest puffed out like a barrel, striding into a rowdy saloon would quiet down the hip-pocket brigade, as the gun-toting miners in town were known. But Cap’s blood had a tendency to heat, and when it did there were consequences. There was, for example, the night he caught up with Reddy McCann in the Branch Saloon. In fairness, Reddy had done much to irritate the marshal even before their paths had crossed that snowy evening. Not only was Reddy making a play for one of the showgirls for whom Cap had a hankering, but he was a faro dealer at a newly opened establishment meant to compete with Soapy’s string of clubs. Add to that, on the icy night in question Cap was already in bad humor after having had to trudge his way through mounds of dark snow as he made his rounds. So when Cap sauntered into the Branch and spotted Reddy at the bar, he couldn’t help himself. He let loose with a bombastic and downright rude greeting. His judgment tilted by hours of drink, Reedy responded with a few mean-spirited remarks of his own. Before he could finish, the marshal decided he’d suffered enough humiliation. He drew his gun and shot the faro dealer five times in the chest. There was an inquest, but the ruling was self-defense. So Cap continued to wear his star and, in his fashion, keep the peace.
There were camp meetings to elect aldermen and a judge, but these were sham proceedings. The ballot boxes were as guyed as one of Soapy’s faro dealing boxes. And just to make certain there’d be no surprises, Soapy himself did the counting. Landslide victories were the order of the day, and members of the Soap Gang, oafs who had never gotten around to learning to read or write, were sworn in to office.
Yet Soapy wasn’t just grabbing with both thick fists. As he thought befit a man in his lofty position, Soapy affected a sense of municipal responsibility. When Reverend E. A. Paddock came to Creede to build the town’s first church, it was Soapy who, in one swift, magnanimous gesture, provided the bulk of the funds. And he could be downright visionary, especially since he appreciated that his vision would help solidify the value of his own investments. Soapy understood that if Creede were to have a future beyond its mining days, the town would need to attract men of substance and commerce. The way to accomplish this, he reasoned, was to elect a mayor whose reputation would inspire confidence.
With that idea in mind, he contacted Herman Strauss of the Levi Strauss dry goods company in Denver. He knew Strauss from his shop on Larimer Street and in a blunt letter offered him the job. That the votes would need to be tallied to make it official, Soapy assured the merchant, should give him no concern. Without going into details, Soapy simply guaranteed that the mayoralty would be Strauss’s if he desired it. Intrigued, Strauss came to Creede, looked the town over, but then decided he wasn’t interested. Perhaps he recognized that no matter what position he held, the real power in Creede would always reside in Soapy’s self-serving authority.
YET IN his heart, Soapy was above all else a gambler, and he transformed Creede into a sporting town. Wedged along a stretch that wasn’t even as long as many a freight train
, in tents, dim rooms illuminated by kerosene lanterns, and gaudy storefronts with red plush on the walls and crystal chandeliers and piano music and dancing girls, at least sixty establishments flourished. These “clubs,” as they were known, operated as saloons, gambling parlors, brothels, and, on Sunday mornings, houses of worship. Day or night, they were always jumping.
Soapy owned at least a third of the clubs outright and had an interest in an equal number. But the centerpiece of his empire and the home for him and his gang was the Orleans Club. Standing in the middle of Main Street, it was a long, narrow building with a large American flag flying from its corniced roof. Faro, dice, and poker were the games, and a wooden bar offered a buffet of free eats featuring bowls of hard-boiled eggs and vats of pickled pigs’ trotters. The games were rigged, the decks were stacked, and the food was so unappetizing that it lay untouched until it turned a dingy gray similar to the color of the cliffs outside; when the platters were scraped and the remnants hauled off to the livery, even the burros wouldn’t touch it. Yet no one seemed to mind. Most nights, Soapy could count on four hundred or more hurrahing miners filling the Orleans Club.
Hoping to keep the crowds coming, Soapy brought in a trio of musicians from Denver and they had a gay sound that the gamblers enjoyed. He paid them in silver and gold currency, and the gamblers were generous, too, with their tips. But one cold, snowy night a miner playing faro decided the draw was rigged and reached for his Colt. Guns started blasting and a yell went up: “Down on the floor, everybody!” One musician hid behind a potbellied stove; another crouched behind a beer barrel. The shooting went on for what seemed like an eternity, people firing at close range across the room toward one another. Then, with their guns drawn, the men ran out into the street, and the crack of pistol shots echoed off the canyon walls. The musicians had hidden themselves well; they were out of the line of fire, and none of the three was hurt. But in the morning, they decided that Creede was not to their liking and boarded the first train to Denver. Soapy was disappointed, but he appreciated their concerns. After that Soapy made do with only a piano player, and that worked out more successfully since most of the time the musician was too drunk to be perturbed by any gunplay.
SOAPY’S ACHIEVEMENT was swift and total. In about three months, he had fulfilled his plan. He was king of Creede. Everyone he encountered deferred to him. Merchants asked for his advice and hoped for his approval. Women were eager to be in his company. He’d succeeded in an enterprise the likes of which Clubfoot would not have been able to imagine. Yet, he discovered to his bewilderment, it brought him little satisfaction. This troubled him, and set him brooding. Perhaps, he wondered, he was not cut out for this sort of power. Perhaps he required the excitement of a gambler’s more uncertain adventures. Though he still wore his old wide-brimmed black hat, heavy lay the crown these days. He controlled an entire town, but there was not one man in his gang worthy of his friendship. He could barely look at them, let alone share a sensible conversation. He would spend days alone in his room reading the Bible. The travails of the ancient Hebrew kings filled him with a sense of recognition. Monarchs like Solomon and David, he felt, were his natural predecessors. He was a cutter with the dance hall girls, yet he missed his wife. Still, he couldn’t imagine Mary living here; nor could he blame her. And raising children in Creede? The notion was absurd.
At the same time, he was unprepared to abandon all he had schemed and plotted so energetically to obtain. It went against his grain. His instinct, in fact, was to acquire more, to tighten his control.
Wrestling with these warring thoughts, Soapy’s mood was often skittish. One day he’d be sentimental, filled with a generosity that was almost philanthropic. The next he’d act with a tyrant’s stony heart. His gang never knew what to expect, so they gave up trying. They just obeyed.
When, for example, “Gambler Joe” Simmons died from pneumonia, Soapy was knocked for a twister. Simmons and Soapy went back quite a ways; as boys they’d punched cows up the Chisholm Trail. But their friendship had never run deep. Simmons’s death, however, left Soapy bereft. Despite a raging snowstorm, Soapy led a procession of mourners up the steep hill to Sunnyside Cemetery. It was a difficult journey. Less than halfway up, the wagon skidded and the casket shot out the back and landed in a snowbank. As a tearful Soapy supervised, his boys carried it back into the wagon. Now the horses resisted; they couldn’t pull the load through the drifts of snow. There was talk of turning back, but Soapy wouldn’t hear it. He ordered the boys to carry the casket and the case of Pommery he had provided the rest of the way.
By the time they reached the cemetery, the storm had intensified. Soapy, however, insisted on delivering a eulogy. “Did any of you ever know him to do a thing that wasn’t square …?” Soapy challenged as thick curtains of snow came down. Of course Simmons, like most of the gamblers at the Orleans, had routinely dealt from a gaffed deck, but no one felt like challenging Soapy in his wound-up state. “The best we can do now is drink to his health and wish him the best there is in the land beyond the range,” he continued. At last, on Soapy’s command, the twelve bottles of champagne were opened and a toast was drunk to “the health of Joe Simmons in the hereafter, if there is a hereafter.” There was a mournful chorus of “Auld Lang Syne,” and then the crowd started the long trek down the hill. But Soapy wouldn’t leave the grave site. He sat in the falling snow, a limp bundle crying heartfelt tears that only those who knew him well suspected were not just for his departed friend.
Yet when another acquaintance from Denver came to Creede and, with Soapy’s approval, opened a dance hall, Soapy had no regard for their years of friendship. He became incensed. The more he brooded, the larger the insult grew in his mind. Friend or not, prior permission or not, Soapy decided an example had to be delivered to the town. If he didn’t act, how long would it be before other greedy scoundrels arrived to horn in on his livelihood? He determined that he’d better kill Bob Ford.
Soapy, though, wanted it to seem like a fair fight. A decade earlier Ford had shot Jesse James in the back, and Soapy now decided he would use this history to provoke Ford into drawing on one of Soapy’s hired guns. Gunslingers took to following Ford around Creede, taunting him in booming singsong voices with the words of a popular ditty: “Jesse had a wife / A lady all her life / Three children, they were brave. / But that dirty little coward / That shot Mr. Howard / Has laid Jesse James in his grave.” Ford had heard it all too many times before. He kept walking.
It was frustrating. Soapy imagined his gunnies would go hoarse before Ford would draw on any of them. What more was he supposed to do? He’d given Ford his chance to show a bit of gumption. If he didn’t have it in him, well, Soapy decided, Ford deserved what he got.
Soapy hired an ex-marshal from nearby Bachelor City, Ed O’Kelley. Carrying a double-barreled shotgun, O’Kelley walked into the tent where Ford did business. “Hello, Bob,” he said. As Ford turned to acknowledge the greeting, O’Kelley pulled both triggers of the big gun. The blast ripped apart Ford’s throat. Gurgling on his own blood, Ford choked to death.
A day or two later, papers were signed that legally transferred the dance hall to one of Soapy’s associates.
AS THE months passed, it got so that the gang felt they would not be surprised by anything their boss did. But they were mistaken. When Soapy introduced them to McGinty, the boys, for once, didn’t know what to make of it. They couldn’t decide what was more incredible: the fact that Soapy was brazen enough to try this scam or that the rubes ate it up.
McGinty was nearly six feet tall, weighed a good four hundred pounds, had a bluish-gray complexion, and to the touch was as hard as stone. He was a petrified man.
According to the excited story in the Creede Candle, a prospector, J. J. Dore, had been working a claim about seven miles southeast of Creede on a ridge east of the Rio Grande “when he came to a piece of stone shaped like a man’s foot protruding from a bank of soil.” “Dore,” the paper announced, “had found the body of a m
an turned to stone.
“It is probable that this is the most perfect and interesting petrifaction ever found.” The article went on to proclaim: “The man in life had been a well-proportioned and perfect specimen of manhood. Every detail of flesh and muscle is shown in the stone just as it was in life. There is no sign of emaciation.… The muscles are as round and finely formed and the surface has the mark of the skin as well as a living man.”
On the same front page that reported on the amazing discovery, the paper ran a “news flash”: For $3,000, Soapy Smith had purchased the petrified man. He had christened the find “McGinty” and planned to exhibit the body throughout the nation.
“I don’t begrudge having invested my three thousand dollars in this piece of stone,” Soapy solemnly explained to a reporter the following day. “From all the evidences I have secured I am implicitly convinced that it is a genuine case of petrifaction and that not only myself and the medical world will be benefited by exhibition of it, but also the entire civilized world because of its anatomical perfections.”
Of course, Soapy was lying. He had not paid a single dollar for McGinty, let alone three thousand. Then again, Dore had not dug up the petrified man. Soapy had had him manufactured by a California firm that specialized in the ancient Egyptian art of petrifaction. A cadaver had been shipped from Creede (where there were ample unclaimed bodies to choose from), and when the process was completed, Soapy had enlisted Dore. The story of stumbling initially on the exposed foot, then feverishly digging up the stony body, and finally carting it triumphantly into town—all that was Soapy’s invention.