OPINION

REX NELSON: The hottest spring

Well aware of my love of Hot Springs and the characters who have called it home through the years, a friend sent me a copy of an article that ran in the March 19, 1962, issue of Sports Illustrated. The story was written by Robert Boyle, who lived on the banks of the Hudson River in New York and often wrote about fishing.

The headline read: "The hottest spring in Hot Springs: That's the forecast for this jumping Arkansas town where gambling is wide open, the track is fast and the fishing is fine." Spring remains prime time for tourism in the Spa City--Oaklawn Park is holding its annual Racing Festival of the South this week--but in 1962 the gambling machines were spread across the city rather than being confined to Oaklawn. Boyle wrote of men with nicknames such as Bones Martin, The Dreamer and Amarillo Slim.

"These and many more piled into the little city of 36,000 that snuggles in a valley of the Ouachita Mountains," he wrote. "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. ... Hot Springs, sometimes celebrated as the Paris of the Bible Belt, attracts characters and crowds galore because it has something for almost everyone. ... Besides legal betting on the horses at Oaklawn Park, there's illegal gambling--craps, roulette, chuck-a-luck, bingo, blackjack, slots, you name it--at the lavish casinos. There's 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 a.m."

Puckett played the piano for diners in the Venetian Room of the Arlington Hotel until shortly before his death in January. The Reggie Cravens Combo played in the Arlington lobby in later years. I grew up 35 miles from Hot Springs. It was my "big city" during the 1960s and 1970s, a seemingly exotic place filled with exotic people. I was a newspaper junkie and was amazed that you could buy a copy of that day's Chicago Tribune in the Arlington lobby in those days.

A half century ago, Winthrop Rockefeller, the state's new governor, began shutting down the illegal gambling operations. Downtown Hot Springs fell into an era of decline that only recently has begun to abate. But in 1962, downtown was hopping. Hot Springs attorney Nate Schoenfeld told Sports Illustrated: "The best way to govern 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. ... 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."

One of the characters who loved to hang out in Hot Springs was Rodney Fertel of New Orleans, who became known as the Gorilla Man because he had run unsuccessfully for mayor of New Orleans on the promise that he would buy a pair of gorillas for the Audubon Zoo. His wife was Ruth Fertel, the founder of the Ruth's Chris chain of steakhouses.

Their son, Randy Fertel, wrote a book about his parents in 2011, The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak. It features a photo of Rodney and Ruth walking down Central Avenue in 1948. "In this year, 1948, Hot Springs is a wide-open town, dominated by the Southern Club, a gambling house in operation since 1893," Randy Fertel wrote. "In Las Vegas, Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel is only two years old and the Strip still but a dream. The mineral baths and the gambling tables draw Rodney and Ruth here from their home in New Orleans for long stays. Rodney enjoys independent means inherited from his pawnbroker grandparents; no job pulls him home. The horses bring them, too. In 1948, the Fair Grounds in New Orleans celebrates its Diamond Jubilee, 75 years of continuous thoroughbred racing. Hot Springs' Oaklawn Park is almost as old. This very summer, Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, Huey's brother and an inveterate gambler, comes to Hot Springs 'for his arthritis.' Gov. Long begins his day with the Daily Racing Form and the tout sheets."

On this Wednesday before the Arkansas Derby, it's probably best to close with what Robert Boyle wrote for a national audience 55 years ago: "Everything considered, there isn't anything in the world like Hot Springs--or the people in it. This is not to say the town couldn't be improved. Part of it could use a couple of coats of paint; there are junky signs and assorted clutter disfiguring some of the land around Lake Hamilton; and a local restaurant may mar a good meal by serving the Chianti ice cold. But perhaps it would be better not to tamper with Hot Springs."

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate community relations for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 04/12/2017

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