Can a desk ever be considered a weapon? If Soapy actually did own this desk then what devious as well as generous plots were devised and implemented here? If the shelves and drawers could only talk, the stories they would reveal. If once owned by Soapy then yes, this desk could very well fit into the category of weapon.

The caption in the newspaper under the photograph reads,

‘Soapy’ Smith, colorful pioneer Denver bad man, probably sat at this old desk in much the same manner as Miss Hazel Farrell does. The desk has been given away by its owner.

“Soapy” Smith’s desk, one of the few remaining mementos of Denver’s own pioneer Robin Hood, has changed owners again.

"First it was sold at auction many years ago, when “Soapy” left Denver for the lure of gold in Alaska, to Alexander Searway, a close friend of “Soapy” in the early ‘80s, when the colorful bad man was selling his cakes of soap, wrapped in $5, $10 and $20 bills or made to seem as if they were wrapped in the money.

When the elder Searway died, more than twenty years ago, the old desk went to his son, F. E. Searway, a graphic mining engineer. Now Searway has given the desk to Doc Bird Finch, Denver Post cartoonist, a friend of Searway’s for many years.

Memories of the old Denver, when Smith, a power in political circles by virtue of his dominating personality and army of bad men, held forth in a Market street hotel and directed his forces in their warfare on other gangs, are evoked in the minds of old-timers at sight of Soapy’s desk.

If it could speak, it would tell of blazing six-guns and strange machinations of its eccentric owner, as he laid his plans and conducted his odd “business” in the old Market street hostelry.

Thomas Jefferson (Soapy) Smith was shot and killed by Frank Reid near Skagway, Alaska, in 1898. Before he fell in agony, the former king of Denver bad men shot his killer from the hip. Reid died two weeks later.

On the drawers of the desk are mute testimonials to the boyishness and naiveté of the redoubtable “Soapy.” His name is carved and painted on every drawer."

Authenticity rating: Slight to Possible.