[1] On April 4, 1881, the first annual Garfield Township meeting was held at Soper's drug store, of which he was one of the presiding officers.

[7] In December 1891, a petition was filed to Governor Edwin B. Winans by Lansing Mayor Frank B. Johnson.

It included a number of charges against Soper, including purchasing an unnecessarily large amount of supplies, demanding a portion of Assistant Secretary of State Louis E. Rowley's salary under threat of dismissal, and misappropriation of state funds for himself.

There, he attempted to be credited with the discovery of Native American artifacts, by planting some he had already owned, and uncovering them in front of local archaeologists.

However, the archaeologists could tell the artifacts were not of Southwestern origin, and Soper's attempted fraud was revealed.

[11] By 1907, Soper had gotten involved with James O. Scotford, who in 1890 announced the discovery of Native American mound artifacts with written language on them in Montcalm County.

The artifacts are widely considered fraudulent, as they had several indicators of recent creation, as well as an inconsistency with authentic human language, among other reasons.

By 1911, Scotford, Soper, and a Catholic pastor, James Savage, had opened over 500 mounds, and the "discovery" of many false artifacts from them.