Alaska’s history is peppered with crooks, cons and other characters famous for running afoul of the law. One of them is Soapy Smith, whose travels brought him briefly to the Kenai Peninsula.
Historian Jane Haigh has written about Smith, and on Thursday night, told his story at the Kasilof Regional Historical Association Museum.
There were a lot of dangers faced by the people flooding the American west in the late 19th century. And at least as dangerous as inclimate weather, tuberculosis or a stray bullet was the good, old-fashioned crook. The story of Soapy Smith, is the story of a swindler. A pretty good one, too.
For some two decades, from Denver to the Kenai Peninsula, Smith made a living with little more than a good line, a quick hand, and a code of morality that read like an entry application to the 8th circle of Dante’s Inferno.
