Historic gambling spot gutted by fire

Caryn Rousseau

Thursday, July 12, 2001 | 10:29 a.m.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- An early-morning fire Wednesday gutted two buildings in downtown Hot Springs, including the historic Ohio Club, a century-old saloon that once served gangster Al Capone and until the late 1960s offered illegal gambling.

"I can almost remember the year when the state police raided it," said Wanda Thompson, a former bartender at the club. "They came in and broke the gambling paraphernalia, took slot machines and busted the tables up."

But Thompson said they didn't get everything.

"I had hidden a $1,500 slot bank in one of the drawers down there," she said. "That's one of the things they didn't find."

A fire broke out around 5 a.m., Fire Chief Arval Sander said. Fire Marshal Ed Davis said the Ohio Club, built in 1905, was a total loss, but the owner said he will try to rebuild. The adjacent Old Plaza Hotel building, erected in 1910, was salvageable, Davis said. The cause of the fire wasn't known.

About five blocks of Central Avenue, which separates Hot Springs' business district from its famous Bathhouse Row, were closed for four hours.

The club boasted stories of visits by Capone and his nemesis Bugs Moran. Also, big-name entertainers such as Mae West and Al Jolson played the club. In recent years, a Capone Burger was added to the Ohio Club menu, at $6.95.

During a recent renovation, workers found several bullet holes in the original ceiling. Behind fake walls and floorboards, they also found paraphernalia for a wire service operated for bookies in the 1940s.

Thompson said she celebrated her 21st birthday at the club in 1967. She said that, at the time, the club had a casino on the second floor and a bar on the first floor.

"I worked down there with cokes and piped-in music," she said. "It was bring-your-own-bottle just before they legalized liquor in Arkansas."

The club's ornate bar had been imported from England, building owner Ken Wheatley said.

Thompson described the bar as "magnificent."

"Somebody brought it over here ... with mother-of-pearl like you'd see on an old ship with a carving of a woman," she said. "It held a lot of good memories for me."

Wheatley said he suspects recent problems with local vandals may be the cause of the fire.

"There's a tremendous amount of graffiti in the buildings," Wheatley said. "And it appears that the back door of the Ohio Club was jimmied."

Wheatley said he would try to preserve what he could.

"We're trying to save the facades to keep the memories of those buildings alive," Wheatley said.