The Yukon Gold Rush of 1897 brought Soapy Smith to Skagway, Alaska. Before long Smith was the "boss" of Scagway. He moved from petty swindles and eventually controlled most of Skagway's darker vices. He opened a telegraph office and miners would come into the office to send messages to their families and friends, and a few hours later, back would come a telegraphed reply. This worked quite satisfactorily for all parties, apparently, despite the fact that there were no telegraph lines connecting Skagway to the outside world !!!

Still, Soapy sometimes had a generous nature and was known to give shelter and food to the penniless. It seemed that he sought the notoriety more than the money and his often swashbuckling manner made him an easy target for the reformers in a town with no law and little order. He ran the town with an iron hand for about a year before the citizens had enough and an uprising put an end to his rule. Soapy lost a gunfight and died on July, 8, 1898 at the age of 37. He's buried in an unmarked grave in a Scagway cemetery.