Late one night in 1863, an exhausted Union cavalry officer searched crowded Nashville, Tennessee, for a hotel room. A clerk at the Commercial Hotel took pity o…
by Elizabeth Robbins/Garland County Historical Society November 1, 2021What’s more fun than going to the State Fair in Little Rock? Well, did you know that, from 1906 to 1914, Arkansans enjoyed the Arkansas State Fair at Oaklawn?
by Elizabeth Robbins/Garland County Historical Society October 1, 2021Most people are lucky to have success in one career, but Lon Warneke shone in several. Warneke’s talents and character took him from a small farm near Mount I…
by Elizabeth Robbins/Garland County Historical Society September 1, 2021In 1836, John C. and Sara Hale purchased land along both sides of what is now Bathhouse Row. While John built a bath house and hotel, Sara claimed part of thei…
by Elizabeth Robbins/Garland County Historical Society August 1, 2021Did you know that for many years a swimming lake was a popular summer attraction in Gulpha Gorge Campground?
by Sharon Shugart, retired National Park Ranger and GCHS volunteer July 1, 2021Where did Hot Springs’ residents and tourists go for arts and entertainment long ago? The best of the early theaters was a hall (with a tin roof) above the fir…
by Elizabeth Robbins/Garland County Historical Society June 1, 2021The creation of lakes Hamilton, Catherine and Ouachita started with the dream of a former Ouachita River steamboat pilot, Flave Carpenter.
May 1, 2021Hot Springs has enjoyed going to the movies since 1907, when residents saw silent movies at the Whittington Amusement Park Theater. Several theaters soon appea…
by Elizabeth Robbins April 1, 2021Twenty-one-year-old Massachusetts native Hiram Whittington came to the Arkansas Territory in 1826 to work as a printer for the Arkansas Gazette. In 1832 Hiram …
by Elizabeth Robbins March 1, 2021Late in the 19th century, as Jim Crow laws were enacted, Major League teams began to bar participation by Black players, a sad fact that would not change until…
by Mark Blaeuer February 1, 2021By all rights, you should hear ghostly train whistles at Transportation Depot at Market Street and Broadway Terrace. Locomotives pulled into the Iron Mountain …
by Elizabeth Robbins January 1, 2021Singers in gleaming white vestments, holding candles, filed down the winding Hot Springs Mountain trail. On Arlington Lawn they took their places on a stage th…
by Elizabeth Robbins December 1, 2020Who was Marjorie Lawrence and what was her connection to Hot Springs?
by Elizabeth Robbins November 1, 2020When Owney Madden moved to Hot Springs in 1935, he was one of the most-feared gangsters in the country. At his death in 1965, he was eulogized as a “truly diff…
by Elizabeth Robbins October 1, 2020The first schools in the Hot Springs area were subscription schools, circa 1845, at Chalybeate Springs and at the lower end of Hot Springs Valley. These closed…
by Elizabeth Robbins September 1, 2020