Skagway Stories

Who was Frank H. Reid?

Unless you’ve been to Skagway, you’ve probably never heard of Frank H. Reid. His greatest life achievement was getting shot by Soapy Smith because that’s how people settled their differences back in 1898. When you visit the Gold Rush Cemetery in Skagway, the largest and most interesting grave is the one that holds the remains of Mr. Reid. Let’s take a more in-depth look at this man who “gave his life for the honour of Skagway.”

Frank H. Reid. Bartender. Soldier. Engineer. Dead.

Frank H. Reid had a big mustache

You can tell if a man lived in the old west because they all had big mustaches. Wyatt Earp had one and so did Frank H. Reid. However, while Wyatt Earp was a handsome man, Frank H. Reid was kind of ugly. Take a look at that picture and you can see what I mean. He looks like he would be a Debby Downer at parties. We will never really know because pictures can be deceiving. He may have been the guy to put the lampshade on his head. Sure doesn’t look like it, though.

The life of Frank H. Reid

Frank H. Reid was born in 1844. Nobody knows the exact date. Apparently, nobody knows what the H stands for either. I’m guessing Herbert. He just looks like a Herbert. Anyway, he was born in Illinois and eventually enlisted in the army. He was part of a company of Oregon volunteers. In the 1870s, he became an engineer. Not one of those train engineers, mind you, but an engineer that solves problems.

He must have been a lousy engineer because by 1897 he was a bartender at the Klondike Saloon in Skagway. Sometimes I think that everyone who comes to Skagway works as a bartender at some point. I know I did. Skagway residents like drinking. Always have.

A path of doom

During August of 1897, Frank H. Reid was appointed town surveyor, which seems like a strange job for a bartender. If you drive around Skagway, it explains a lot. Frank helped map out the town. Considering the town is just a 21 street by 5 street rectangular grid, I don’t understand how this took more than one person. I’m guessing they were drunk since they hired a bartender to help out.

Some other stuff happened that wasn’t important enough to document, and suddenly Frank is a member of the vigilante committee known as the Committee of 101. The Committee was formed because Soapy Smith was a thug gangster. The vigilante’s goal was to bring law and order to Skagway, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Soapy Smith started his own gang called the Committee of 303 because of course he did. The Committee of 101 gathered on the Juneau Wharf on July 8, 1898. Frank H. Reid was there, so it’s likely everyone was half in the bag. Then, Soapy Smith shows up.

Bang. Bang. A nutty shootout

There are different accounts of what happened on that fateful evening. Soapy crashed the party and got into an argument with Frank H. Reid. Apparently, Soapy started giving Reid the business, so Reid pulled his gun and shot him. Soapy pulled his gun in response and shot Frank. Who shot first? When you’re dead it doesn’t really matter.

Getting shot sucks, but there are varying degrees of suck in this scenario. Soapy was killed immediately and that was that. However, Soapy had a wicked sense of humor because he shot Frank H. Reid right in the nugget pouch. It took 12 days for Frank H. Reid to die, presumably in the kind of horrible pain you might expect from having a lead projectile lodged in your screevage.

A legend that kind of lives on

So, Frank H. Reid took one in the scrtoplasm for the “honour of Skagway” and they rewarded him with an eight-foot tall granite phallus gravestone because morticians think they’re really clever. In memory of Frank H. Reid’s sacrifice, Skagway made Soapy Smith an antihero legend.

Today, Skagwegians honor Frank H. Reid with Soapy’s Wake, The Days of ’98 Show Featuring Soapy Smith, and many other events honoring Skagway’s most famous criminal. Frank H. Reid does have two waterfalls named after him, but Upper Reid Falls isn’t really a waterfall so I don’t know what that’s all about.

You can learn more about Frank H. Reid in the many books written about Soapy Smith. You won’t learn much though because con men and gangsters are a lot more interesting than honorable bartenders.

The boulders on either side of the gravestone were removed for being too obvious.