One of the most colorful Newnan natives is a man who would leave Coweta County in his early teens and go on to be a notorious organized crime boss in the Wild West.
Our first introduction to Soapy Smith was through a computer game we loved to play when we were young. It was a game in which you played as a prospector making your way to the Yukon to strike it rich during the gold rush. When you reached the small mining town of Skagway, you were cordially invited to play three card Monte by a bearded man sitting in front of the saloon. He was gracious and gladly stripped you of your life savings in the most charming manner. We had no idea that Soapy Smith was a real person, much less that he grew up less than two miles from where we lived.
Jefferson Randolph Smith II was born in Sharpsburg on November 2, 1860. His family were prominent, wealthy Coweta citizens. Smith’s grandfather moved from Virginia to Coweta County in 1828 when he won a piece of land in the land grant lottery. He built a large, beautiful home on his new property on Shoal Creek. It was in this home that Soapy Smith was born and raised.
The Civil War would spell severe changes in the family’s financial situation. Their wealth was mainly built on slave labor. The severe economic depression that hit the South following the war stripped the Smith family of all of their former wealth. In 1876, Jefferson Smith packed up his family and moved them to Texas to start fresh.
There is no evidence that young Jeff Smith lived anything but an honest law abiding life up until the time he turned eighteen. While living with his parents in Texas, Jeff was present for a dramatic shootout between Round Rock law enforcement and famous outlaw Sam Bass and his gang. Sam Bass lost his life in the gunfire exchange. Historical accounts suggest that witnessing this event excited seventeen-year-old Jeff. Whether this event or the death of his mother were contributing factors of him leaving home shortly after this is unknown, but just a few months later he left to try and make it on his own.
Jeff began his career by selling inexpensive knick-knacks and jewelry for a significantly higher price at fairs. At this time, he also began to learn the standard tricks and games of a confidence man. It was a profession that was well suited to his enthusiasm and charm.
After a short time of traveling around to fairs learning the con man ropes, Jeff finally settled down in Fort Worth, Texas. It was an area that was deep in the heart of the Wild West and filled with shiftless criminals and fresh faced young men traveling west to make their fortune. This turned out to be the perfect combination for Jeff to form a booming business. Growing up on a plantation, he was sure to have observed in detail the workings of a successfully run business.
Back in Texas, Jeff earned the nickname that would stick with him for the rest of his life. He developed an ingenious con that involved him setting up a suitcase full of soap bars on a stand in a public area. He would let a crowd gather around him while he wrapped a few plain bars of soap with paper money ranging from five-dollar bills to one hundred dollar bills. He would then wrap every piece of soap in brown paper and mix the bars containing money together with regular bars. The crowd could buy as many bars of soap as they liked for a dollar each. To put this in perspective, that would be around twenty-four dollars today. Jeff would have a few plants in the crowd to buy bars and “win” the money. This gave the rest of the crowd a false sense of confidence and they would quickly hand over their money not realizing that they had no chance whatsoever at buying one of the cash laced bars. No one except the plants ever found any money in their soap. Jeff’s enemies began calling him Soapy in reference to this notorious con.
Not many grifters in the West had a head for business, and Jeff used his knowledge of enterprise to bring the criminals of Fort Worth together into one gang. As a unit, they were a strong force that regularly swindled idealistic newcomers out of their life savings. Under Jeff’s guidance, they were able to pool their resources and control the lawmakers and police force of the town. Jeff was careful to take very good care of anyone who worked for him. This policy allowed him to quickly gain the trust of men who were generally suspicious by nature.
His business dealings in Fort Worth were just a training ground for the criminal empire he would build in Denver, Colorado. Jeff was only nineteen when he arrived in Denver, but he had already gotten a good deal of experience in running a gang of criminals. Just as he had done in Fort Worth, Jeff quickly united the criminals of Denver into one gang. The Soap Gang, as they were called, were experts at separating people from their cash. They played rigged games, sold fake stocks, and passed off junk as expensive antiques and jewels. Jeff made a large fortune in Denver. He held the police force in the palm of his hand and even the local business owners liked him. He frequently donated large sums of money to help feed and clothe the poor and care for stray animals.
