Long before Las Vegas became Sin City, Hot Springs, Arkansas was home-away-from-home to many of the mob rulers and shakers. After all, if soaking in the hot thermal springs is good for aches and pains, it should help heal old bullet wounds, right? Tracing the gangster history will take us to some more notorious places to go in Hot Springs, which have become some of the best things to do in Hot Springs.
I visited Hot Springs many years ago, but never knew the gangster history until this most recent trip when I visited the Gangster Museum. That’s where our journey will start, and where we will learn the secrets that will lead us along their path of places to go in Hot Springs.
Owen Vincent Madden, Al Capone, Alvin Karpis of the Barker-Karpis Gang, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and other mob figures all have ties that help tell the authentic story of the city. Follow along through this chapter of their fascinating chronicles, which will also enlighten us as to the best things to do in Hot Springs. We’ll start at the source.
But before we do, Hot Springs is located in central Arkansas, about an hour southwest of Little Rock, home to some of the most important Civil Rights sites in the US. You may want to couple it with a few days in Little Rock delving into those historic sites, or enjoying its up and coming craft beer scene.
Places to Go in Hot Springs
Gangster Museum
The museum is divided into seven galleries—Madden, Power Brokers, Al Capone, New York Connection, Outlaw, Casino, and Baseball. Located on the main street across from famous Bath house Row, this museum tells who the true power brokers were in Hot Springs during the 1920s through ‘50s.
Our guide at the museum, Josh, looked and talked like he was part of the gang. His fedora, three-piece suit and long lavender coat would have been high fashion in the 1930s. He began the tour in the Madden Gallery.
Owen Vincent Madden was what would later be called the Godfather in New York City in the 1920s and “retired” to Hot Springs in the ‘30s after his release from Sing Sing and he was informed that he was no longer welcome in New York. He was good friends with New York chorus girl/ later movie star, Barbara Stanwyck. His friends called him “Owney,” but mobsters coming to Hot Springs always visited and paid homage to him.
Power Brokers gallery tells how Leo Patrick McLaughlin was elected mayor of Hot Springs in 1926 and held the office until 1947. Our guide said, “Let’s just say he got things organized.”
Gambling, prostitution, and moonshining operations were overlooked by local police and county sheriff’s department under McLaughlin and his handpicked district attorney for a “fee.” McLaughlin even dressed up like some of the mafia leaders and rode around downtown in a wagon pulled by his horses, Scotch and Soda.
Al Capone is probably the most recognized gangster and rates his own gallery. Two of my favorite exhibits in this gallery are a picture of his prison cell at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and a small moonshine still.
The picture shows that even in prison, he commanded respect. His cell was furnished with items you rarely see in prison; a mahogany secretary with a folding desktop and chair, a comfortable looking easy chair, a couple of nice lamps, and a large sized radio that was a popular piece of furniture at that time.
The still represented one of his operations in Hot Springs. He owned Belvedere Dairy north of town, which he operated as a moonshine distillery. The whiskey was packaged in bottles labeled “Distilled Water” and shipped to his buyers. They recognized the product as whiskey because the water labels were put on upside down.
Al bought a warehouse close to the railroad to store his products. Today that building, built between 1910 and 1920, is the home of legally produced whiskey, Crystal Ridge Distillery. I would have loved to have visited the distillery, but had no time to do so.
The New York Connection Gallery dealt with the many New York based mobsters, like Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, and others who lived visiting the spas and enjoying the many vices available to them here. They followed the rule you couldn’t kill each other here as the governor might shut them down for bringing too much heat on the town. Even Al Capone and his archenemy, George “Bugs” Moran, were in town at the same time and remained peaceful.
The Outlaw Gallery showcases mainly Al “Creepy” Karpis, public enemy number one. He spent a lot of time in Hot Springs in the early 1930s. He loved fishing and the town’s lakes were some of his favorite fishing spots.
The Baseball Gallery showcases the big-name spring training baseball players, especially Babe Ruth, who like visiting the clubs and the spas in Hot Springs and the Casino section is more of a casino display than a real gambling casino. There’s a statue of Al Capone where you can take selfies and displays you can handle.
The Bathhouses
Hot Springs is unique in that one side of the main street is part of the city and the other side is a National Park. The eight bathhouses were built between 1892 and 1923, the basis of the city’s popularity, and the reason the national park exists, and visiting them has always been one of the best things to do in Hot Springs.
The first one on your list needs to be the Fordyce Bathhouse. It’s the largest bathhouse on the row with three floors and a basement and serves as the visitors center and museum.
You can take a ranger led tour or explore for yourself. There’s a video about the history of the bathhouses. The exhibits begin with details about the geology of the area and how the springs formed.
The men’s section is the most elaborate. There’s a beautiful statue of Hernando de Soto being offered some of the water by a Native American maiden in a fountain under a skylight mosaic of a man and a mermaid swimming overhead.
Beautiful, but de Soto was never in Hot Springs and the maiden looks a little too subservient. Still, considering when the bathhouse was built, it fit the era of Victorian luxury.
The museum is detailed. I had no idea there were that many kinds of baths. Plus, there are many other services.
In the ladies’ section, there is a cooling room where ladies sat in robes or sheets and cooled down after the baths. There was a hairdresser, a massage parlor, a parlor with a piano where ladies could just relax, and, for the men, a gym.
There are exhibits on the history of the bathhouses, the supposed healing properties of the waters, and fashions of the time, both men’s and women’s.
Back outside, walk down the alley between the Fordyce and the Maurice Bathhouses, and you will find where the thermal water flows out of a cave in the mountain and forms a small pond.
If you want to experience a thermal bath, Buckstaff continues the traditional bathing experience. It opened in 1912 and is the only bathhouse to remain in continuous operation.
Quapaw houses thermal pools, private baths, modern spa services with their own signature line of specialty products, and a relaxing steam cave. The house also includes an onsite cafe and boutique shop.
Superior Bathhouse is now a brewery, the only brewery in a national park, brewing the only beer made with thermal spring water.
The Hale Bathhouse had been renovated as a hotel. Lamar is the National Park’s offices and a gift shop, Bathhouse Row Emporium.
The Ozark houses the Hot Springs National Park Cultural Center and displays art. Maurice Bathhouse is currently vacant.
Arlington Lawn, just across from Arlington Hotel on the Grand Promenade, is the largest visible spring in the park. Hot water flows down the hillside, forming two pools. There’s a gazebo where you can sit and envision all the gangsters and other visitors coming from the hotel to the bathhouses over the years.
Ohio Club
A life-sized statue of one of their most famous guests, Al Capone, greets you on a bench out front of the club, the perfect selfie spot. Dining at the Ohio Club, Arkansas’ Oldest Bar, feels like stepping back to the early 1900s.
The Ohio Club opened in 1905 as a Bar and Casino, and over the years has hosted every well-known gangster including Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Bugs Moran, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, and others and many Major League Ball players Babe Ruth being the most famous.
Although he was banned from owning an interest in a casino because of his felony convictions, Owen Madden made a nice profit running a wire service that brought racing results from across the country to the bookies running operation in Ohio Club’s back room.
Other celebrities that visited include May West, Sammy Davis Jr., Al Jolson, Tony Bennett, and presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Bill Clinton. It has always been one of the “in” places to go in Hot Springs.
The bar is a work of art with a history of its own. It dates to around 1890 and has a huge hand carved mahogany backbar. The original owners found it in a Cincinnati, Ohio bar. They bought it and shipped it down the Arkansas River by barge to Memphis, Tennessee, then by train to Malvern and on to Hot Springs on a custom-built horse-drawn wagon. The entire front of the club had to be removed and later rebuilt to bring it in. The bar is decorated with hand carvings resembling figureheads on a ship and horse heads.
In the dining area, there are gambling and gangster-related artifacts. The tables are made from roulette wheels. There is a stage and the musician playing the night we dined there was very accomplished.
I had a Grilled Chicken Salad. It was a grilled chicken breast atop a generous helping of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, croutons, and topped with an Italian dressing. It’s a historic bar, so I had to have a cocktail. My Ohio Rum Sour with strawberry and banana rums was as pretty as it was tasty.
Josephine Tussaud Wax Museum
Another popular gambling club was just a short distance away. It was built in 1893, and by 1910, the Southern Club was one of Hot Springs’ most popular gambling houses. In the 1930s, Owen Madden owned a controlling share. (Not sure how, since he was not supposed to own a gambling casino.) Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and other mobsters visited the club. Capone frequented it so often there is an underground tunnel to his room at the Arlington.
Today, it’s Josephine Tussaud Wax Museum where you’ll meet lots of those famous gangsters as well as princes and other famous people. You get to see Capone’s tunnel at the end of the wax museum exhibits, making it unique among wax museums and things to do in Hot Springs.
Arlington Hotel
We stayed at the Arlington Hotel, now in its third incarnation. The original hotel was a three story, 120 room hotel that opened in 1875. As the springs drew more visitors, the old hotel was torn down and a new 300-room Spanish Renaissance structure was built in 1893. That one was destroyed by fire on April 5, 1924 and the present Arlington opened Dec. 31, 1924. Each new version kept the iconic twin towers.
When you step inside the first floor, the lobby has a dining room decorated with room sized murals. There’s a bar and lots of tables in the dining areas. There was a band playing the weekend we visited. Upstairs, the rooms are pretty well kept up, but you need to balance the age and history of the hotel against the more upscale rooms of modern hotels.
This was Al Capone’s favorite Hot springs hotel. He rented the entire fourth floor for his staff and stayed in room 447, today, the Al Capone Suite. He wasn’t the only famous person who stayed at the Arlington. Charles “Lucky” Luciano was here with singer and dancer Gay Orlova when a New York officer in town on a different case in 1936 saw Luciano and local chief of detectives strolling near the bathhouses. The officer arrested Luciano, and he was extradited and convicted of racketeering.
Other famous people that stayed here were Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Babe Ruth Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand and Yoko Ono. Going back to earlier days, William Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and law officer Bat Masterson, stayed here. Again, it has always been one of THE places to go in Hot Springs.
Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort
If you want to stay in the lap of luxury instead of a historic hotel, there is Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort. Today, gambling is legal once again here, but Oaklawn has a long history. Oaklawn has been one of the top thoroughbred racetracks in the country since 1904.
Of course, mobsters loved betting on the horses. There’s a photo in the Gangster Museum in the Madden gallery of Ralph “Bottles” Capone (brother of Al), Harry Alderini, and Hot Springs’ best loved gangster, Owen Madden, standing near the Oaklawn Park finish line in 1945.
Over the years, the racetrack opened and closed depending on the political climate on gambling. Oaklawn is the home of the Racing Festival of the South and $1.25 million Arkansas Derby. The casino is open 24/7 and rivals any of the Vegas casinos. Oaklawn is much more than a casino and racetrack. You can stay at the new, eight-story hotel that has views of the racetrack or the Ouachita Mountains. It has a spa and pretty much any amenities you might want.
Sometimes it’s the tiny details that stand out. A picture in one of the restaurants is of a tiny jockey daydreaming. He is sitting with his eyes tightly closed and over his head is the food he dreams of: a whole baked chicken, lobster, cakes, shrimp, a bottle of champagne, and more.
The resort has multiple dining options and bars. We dined at The Bugler. It’s an upscale dining facility with a great view. If the weather is nice, there is an umbrella protected balcony for outside dining.
I loved the Lobster Bisque served with a bright red hibiscus flower atop it. For my entrée, I had the prettiest plated shrimp and grits that was as delicious as it looked. Tahitian Vanilla and Citrus Cream Brulee, topped with fresh berries for dessert, finished a perfect meal. I washed it all down with a perfect Malibu Rum and pineapple juice topped with some fresh pineapple slices.
Is it Time to Follow the Trail to the Best Things to Do in Hot Springs?
Hot Springs, Arkansas, offers a unique blend of historical intrigue and natural beauty, making it a must-visit destination. The city’s rich gangster history is vividly brought to life through attractions like the Gangster Museum, while the historic bathhouses provide a glimpse into its past as a wellness destination. The Ohio Club and Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort add a touch of glamour and excitement, showcasing the city’s long-standing allure to both gangsters and celebrities.
Whether you’re soaking in the thermal springs, sipping a cocktail at a historic club, or betting on the horses, there’s no shortage of things to do in Hot Springs. I suggest following in the gangster’s footsteps, as they lead to some very intriguing places to go in Hot Springs, then venture further out. You’ll see how this vibrant city seamlessly combines its storied past with modern attractions, offering visitors a truly unforgettable experience. Plan your trip today and discover why Hot Springs should be at the top of your travel list.
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About the Author
Kathleen Walls, former reporter for Union Sentinel in Blairsville, GA, is publisher/writer for American Roads and Global Highways. She is a photographer with many of her original photographs appearing in her travel ezine as well as other publications, contributing to many online and print publications.
She is the author of travel books, Georgia’s Ghostly Getaways, Finding Florida’s Phantoms, Hosts With Ghosts, and Wild About Florida series. Her newest book is American Music: Born in the USA in color with pictures of places related to music history.
Member of International Food, Wine, and Travel Writers (IFWTA). You can find her on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter.
