Gangster Museum of America

The bootlegging, gambling, and bathhouse history of mob-era Hot Springs

A small but well-curated museum on Central Avenue, dedicated to the era when Hot Springs functioned as a national playground for organised crime. Exhibits walk through Owney Madden's quiet retirement in town, the federal raids of the 1960s, and the way the springs themselves drew gangsters in for medicinal soaks alongside the gambling.

Guided tours include working slot machines, vintage roulette wheels, and a recreated speakeasy. The quality of the storytelling is well above what you would expect from a tourist-strip museum — the guides know the local history and tell it with relish.

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A story
Hot Springs in the 1930s was effectively a wide-open city — illegal casinos ran openly along Central Avenue, and Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Owney Madden all kept hotel suites here. The local sheriff is said to have collected a weekly cut. Capone's standing reservation at the Arlington was Suite 442.

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