Shootout on Juneau Wharf

Shootout on Juneau Wharf

The four docks in Skagway. Juneau Wharf is the second from the left.
Date	July 8, 1898
Location	Skagway, District of Alaska, USA
Participants	Jefferson Randolph Smith, Frank H. Reid, Jesse Murphy, Josias Martin Tanner, John Landers.
Outcome	2 killed

The Shootout on Juneau Wharf was a gunfight that occurred at about 9:15 pm on Friday, July 8, 1898, in Skagway, District of Alaska, in the United States. It was a duel between Jefferson Randolph 'Soapy' Smith and Frank H. Reid and Jesse Murphy, in which Smith and Reid were shot to death. They were fighting over the control of the town of Skagway, which at the time was an important port for the Klondike gold rush.

The founding of Skagway, in December 1897, attracted western crime boss Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith and his gang of confidence men to the port, as it was the main American town leading onto the White Pass Trail and into the Klondike gold fields discovered in 1896. Soapy Smith set up his swindle operations and quickly became the region's underworld boss just as he had done in Denver and Creede, Colorado.

Other men seeking control of Skagway formed a vigilante committee under the guise of law and order, but had little effect in the beginning. Smith was popular and supported by many of the merchants in town as they benefited from the criminal operations of Smith and his men, who freely spent their ill-gotten gains in the local businesses. Smith also donated to numerous charitable causes in town. The vigilantes remained quiet and small in numbers.

Victims of the gang's confidence swindles had little recourse; the deputy United States Marshal was receiving graft from Smith, enabling the gang to operate with little fear of arrest. That, coupled with the already bogged-down legal system in the area, made resolution of crime difficult, at best.

The harsh and lawless environment invited crimes of violence probably not associated with Smith and his bunco men, but his opposition used the opportunity to place blame on Smith. Several murders, one after another, in March 1898, coupled with negative newspaper accounts about Skagway's lawless element, aroused fear and concern that the gold rush stampeders might abandon Skagway as an access point to the gold fields.

A vigilance committee calling themselves the 101 demanded relief from the federal government. When that proved too slow, they took matters into their own hands and posted handbills around Skagway ordering the bunco men to leave Skagway or face the consequences. Smith retaliated by forming his own "law and order committee", but he claimed his consisted of "317 citizens". He also had handbills printed up and posted around town warning the vigilantes from attempting to take the law into their own hands. Tensions escalated and climaxed on July 8, 1898, with the robbery of a returning miner's gold.