JEFF SMITH’S PARLOR MUSEUM RECALLS SOAPY’S DIRTY DEEDS

n December 1897 the First Bank of Skaguay (a Tlingit word referring to rough weather conditions in the Alaska gold rush port) opened for business in a single-story wood-frame building on 6th Avenue between Broadway and State Street. By the following spring the bank had moved out, and infamous con man Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith had moved in, headquartering his criminal enterprise in the building. Today the structure houses Jeff Smith’s Parlor Museum, one of four museums within Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park [].