The Hottest Spring In Hot Springs

Hot Springs, Arkansas was heating up. Sarge the Syrian was there, and so were Amarillo Slim, Nigger Nate, Bones Martin and The Dreamer, gamblers all. Atlantic City Red, the pool hustler, was there, though he kept denying his identity. "You're the 20th guy who's confused me with him," he said, feigning innocence. His confrere, Daddy Warbucks, was expected there any minute. Tiny, the "heavy man," or bouncer, at The Vapors, was there, and the Round Man was out shooting at the golf course. Tommy Freeman, ex-welterweight champion of the world, was there, and so was a little geezer of 94, Cap'n Joe Piggott, who said he had been Teddy Roosevelt's bodyguard. Colonel Reed Landis, son of the late Judge Landis, the baseball commissioner, was there, and so was Lon Warneke, who won 192 games for the Cardinals and Cubs. Texas millionaires were there, along with some moonshiners from the Possum Kingdom in the hills near by. Chicago cloak-and-suiters were there, to say nothing of arthritics from St. Joe, Mo.

These and many more piled into the little city of 36,000 that snuggles in a valley of the Ouachita (wash-i-taw) Mountains. The most unusual spa in the United States, Hot Springs is also, pound for pound, the greatest sporting town anywhere. Last week marked the middle of the town's traditional spring season, and by all odds this one shapes up as the hottest in history—unless the FBI interferes. The FBI, you see, was also there. The only people who were leaving were the carnival folk who winter in town; they were outward bound for the Seattle World's Fair and other midways near and far.

Hot Springs, sometimes celebrated as the Paris of the Bible Belt, attracts characters and crowds galore because it has something for almost everyone. "Free Beer Tomorrow," flashes a neon sign over one saloon. At times it seems as though the town was dreamed up in a collaboration of W. C. Fields and the Mayo brothers. Besides legal betting on the horses at Oaklawn Park, there is illegal gambling—craps, roulette, chuck-a-luck, bingo, blackjack, slots, you name it—at the lavish casinos. There is bathing in the radioactive waters from the hot springs at the Quapaw and other bathhouses along the Row on Central Avenue, bow-and-arrow shooting at Crystal Springs, where the National Archery Association holds its annual championship, superb fishing in the nearby countryside, sailing and skin-diving at Lakes Hamilton, Catherine and Ouachita, championship cock-fighting not too far away, coon hunting in the mountains and good jazz in the Skyline Lounge, where John Puckett plays the piano, and the Black Orchid, where Charles Porter, piano, and Reggie Cravens, bass, hold forth until 5 in the morning.

Hot Springs has lured people since time began. Warring Indian tribes used to gather there in holy truce to partake of the waters bubbling from the earth. Legend has it that Ponce de Leon was really looking for these springs when he was chasing after the Fountain of Youth. In 1832 the U.S. Congress recognized the therapeutic value of the water by setting aside four square miles with the 47 springs as a federal preserve. As far as anyone knows, the water has always flowed steadily from its unknown underground source at a rate of almost a million gallons a day, with an average temperature of 143�. "An unutterable, unspeakable, awesome miracle," intones Nate Schoenfeld, a local lawyer and bath booster, braced at attention, hat over heart.

A National Parks Service plant cools the water to body temperature and pipes it into the bathhouses, where private concessionaires, operating under strict lease from the government, serve it up to customers by the tubful. The water not only has a favorable effect on arthritis, bursitis and rheumatism, but is also most relaxing for the visitor un-afflicted with anything save a hangover or the tensions of modern life. The peak of bliss comes when the attendant pulls the plug after your daily 15-minute soaking. As the water surges down the drain, you are plastered to the sides of the tub like a wet leaf on a curbstone.

The reputation of the spa built the town of Hot Springs. It was one of the first spring training sites for baseball teams. As early as 1886 the Chicago White Stockings repaired there to "boil out the alcoholic microbes" picked up from winter "lushing." Boxers came down by droves, from John L. Sullivan and Battling Nelson to Harry Greb and Jersey Joe Walcott.

In the 1930s and '40s Hot Springs was notorious as a sanctuary for gangsters on the lam. Pretty Boy Floyd stayed a spell, and so did the Alvin Karpis gang. They had the freedom of the city; indeed, a phone call from the mayor's office is reputed to have triggered the Kansas City massacre. The mayor was Leo Patrick McLaughlin, an evil rogue who refused to let the kids in town have a playground. He preferred that they continue to loiter in pool halls. Known as Dixie's Jimmy Walker, Leo always sported a fresh carnation in his lapel, wore his hat brim up in front and down in back and paraded around town in a carriage drawn by two hackney ponies named Scotch and Soda. His only advice to the gangsters was, "Check your irons at the state line." He met his downfall in 1946 when a group of G.I.s, led by Sid McMath, an ex-Marine officer who later became governor of the state, and Nate Schoenfeld, a onetime Syracuse halfback and Harvard Law School graduate, rallied an independent party that defeated the crooked machine. The G.I.'s were reformers but not bluenoses. They closed down the gambling, purging it of Leo's cronies, but after McMath became governor it opened up again. The people wanted it that way. "The best way to govern," says Schoenfeld, who is not a gambling man himself, "is to do a hell of a lot of leavin' alone. The people are the ultimate repository of what the good God has put in them. The gambling is home-owned and operated. There's no hoodlum element, no oppression, no scum. No one forces himself on anyone else. There is no guy around here with greasy hair and a Mafia smile. The people are capable, clean, decent, friendly. This place reflects the quality, character and charm of all of us. This place has got roots. It's 24 hours of happiness."

At present there are three large gambling casinos in Hot Springs: The Vapors, the newest and plushest; the Belvedere, the biggest, just outside the city limits (free cab rides to and from); and the Southern Club, the oldest and most centrally located, just across the street from the Arlington Hotel. All have nightclubs. Jan Garber and his orchestra play regularly for dancing at the Belvedere throughout the season. In addition, there are about half a dozen smaller gambling places and two Negro clubs—the Atmosphere, run by huge Honey Tweedle, and the Cameo, operated by his pal, Bubba Page.

All the gambling houses in the city pay a local tax, $500 a month for what the law defines simply as "a large place" and $200 a month for "a small place." When the city fathers passed this law in 1958 they noted, "It is not the intention of the City Council to legalize any of the operations, but if same are conducted, taxes shall be paid." The tax money goes into the Hot Springs Municipal Auditorium and Civic Improvement Fund, and this year the city clerk expects to collect $80,000. A few years ago the town, led by the local state senator, with the wondrous name of Q. Byrum Hurst, tried to get the legislature to legalize the gambling, but a handful of rural representatives helped beat the bill. By custom and tradition, the governor of Arkansas keeps hands off Hot Springs. The state needs the tourists for its economy.

A spokesman for the gamblers is Dane Harris, 43, president and general manager of The Vapors, a partner in the Belvedere and an enthusiastic member of the Chamber of Commerce. A boyish-looking six-footer with a crew cut, Harris could pass for a young college professor. "Of course this town's illegal," he says, with candor, "but it's been running open for years. People expect it and want it. This is strictly a local operation, has not been anything else and will not be anything else. This is a different type of element. Check the police records for the lack of prostitution and narcotics. Probably our own interest in gambling is more of an interest in it as a business than gambling for its own sake. It looked like probably one of the few things that could be big enough to build the town on."