Before Vegas Became Vegas, Hot Springs Was America's Sin City. Now the Arkansas Spa Town Embraces Its Colorful and Seedy History

A life-size statue of infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone, sitting outside a downtown bar with a cigar in his hand, surprises many first-time visitors to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Even Arkansans have largely forgotten that this attractive spa town was America’s original Sin City, teeming with casinos and brothels, and frequented by big-name gangsters. The mobster Bugsy Siegel may have even used Hot Springs as an inspiration when he was developing the Las Vegas Strip.

The leading authority on the town’s colorful, decadent, sinful history (it was known as “the loose buckle in the Bible Belt”) is a charismatic, white-haired, sharp-dressed man named Robert K. A former rock singer and computer salesman, he has written a book and made several short documentaries about vice and organized crime in Hot Springs. He’s also the founder and director of the Gangster Museum of America, in the heart of the historic district.

I meet him in the lobby bar of the grand old Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa on Central Avenue, where Capone would rent out the entire fourth floor for his entourage and stay for weeks at a time. In 1931, Las Vegas had a population of around 5,000 and no resorts, Raines says. It had wide-open gambling, which was illegal in Arkansas; wide-open prostitution; and all the bootleg liquor anyone would ever need. ...

The gangsters loved coming down here because they could relax, have a good time and not worry about getting arrested, because all the cops were paid off.” We’re joined by a semiretired attorney named Q. Byrum Hurst Sr., was a Hot Springs lawyer who represented underworld figures like Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa. He served 22 years as an Arkansas state senator and ran for governor, battling to preserve gambling in his hometown.

Some of the most prominent gangsters who frequented Hot Springs were New York kingpin Charles “Lucky” Luciano, his associate Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone, the infamous head of the Chicago mob. The latter often stayed in the same room here at the Arlington—Room 443, now the Al Capone Suite—and often drank at the lobby bar where we’re sitting. Raines has a photograph of Capone with his two brothers, wearing sombreros and riding donkeys at the Happy Hollow Amusement Park, a short walk from the Arlington.

Capone was seen all around town. He went to the racetrack, played golf and kept a fishing cabin on the Ouachita River. Sometimes he would ship his green, armored 1928 Cadillac on the train to Hot Springs, so he could ride around in style.