EPISODE 16 -- HISTORIAN, BIOGRAPHER JANE HAIGH

Jane Haigh has lived in Fairbanks for most of the last 35 years, except for the last few winters which she has spent in Tucson working on her PhD in U.S.; History at the University of Arizona. Jane earned a Masters Degree in Northern Studies from the University of Alaska, served as guest curator for two major exhibits at the University of Alaska Museum, and was a popular speaker for the Alaska Humanities Forum Speakers Bureau. She also served on the School Board, and ran for the state legislature, twice.

"KING CON The Story Of Soapy Smith" is the first full biography in more than forty years, in it Haigh chronicles the rise to power of a man without a conscience. Starting as a street corner shell game artist, Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith rose to power as a gang leader in Denver, then chose raw, lawless Skagway as his headquarters to fleece the thousands heading for the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. Less than a year later he was dead, killed in a vigilante shootout on the Skagway wharf.  I am busy working on my Dissertation, based on the material I stumbled into while researching Soapy Smith:  "Political Power, Patronage, and Protection Rackets: Municipal Politics and Corruption in Denver 1889-1904". www.janehaigh.com