Capone Riding a Donkey in Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas Featured On New Postcard

HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, Arkansas – The image is totally out of character: One of the most notorious and infamous gangsters in history is wearing a tailored suit and a comically floppy cowboy hat – and seated on a donkey.

It's Al Capone. The time is the 1930s. The place is Happy Hollow Springs in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, where Capone was such a familiar visitor that he had his own suite in the nearby Arlington Hotel.

Shown with Capone – also riding donkeys and also wearing funny hats – are his brother, Ralph (Bottles) Capone, and his driver, George H. Meyer, the "wheelman" in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago.

The recently discovered photo, loaned by Mike Shaw, owner of Shaw's Antiques in Hot Springs, is the subject of a new promotional postcard that will be distributed by the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We have had such huge success with our other series of postcards that we decided to produce one that captures the flavor of the days when Hot Springs was known worldwide as a place where people such as Al Capone would come to enjoy the thermal waters, the great climate, the exciting things to do in the city and an unofficial ‘truce' that allowed
gangsters from all over the country to relax without fear of confrontation with their rivals from other cities," said Steve Arrison, executive director of the Hot Springs CVB. "We've done postcards that show Babe Ruth, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, fishing legend Jerry McKinnis, President Bill Clinton and others in Hot Springs settings. We give the postcards to meeting and convention groups as a souvenir for their delegates. The cards have proven such a huge hit with these groups that we decided to keep developing new ones for our convention-sales staff to use as a tool to recruit new business."

Arrison said, "We've found over the years that Al Capone's connection to Hot Springs is known all around the world and is the subject of intense interest among visitors to the city. In fact, one of England's major daily newspapers did a whole travel segment last year about the ‘Capone connection.'

"The Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa is famous as Capone's favorite place to stay, and they have a continuing huge demand from visitors who want to stay in ‘Al's Suite' at the hotel."

Arrison said no one is certain of the exact date when Capone, his brother and Meyer were photographed at Happy Hollow, but it is known that during the 1930s Capone and his entourage were frequent visitors to the city. One of their favorite hangouts was the Southern Club, directly across Central Avenue from the Arlington. Capone's favorite chair at the Southern Club is owned by the Garland County Historical Society and was featured in a display of historic Hot Springs memorabilia at the Convention Center in 2001.

"One of the interesting things we learned in developing this new postcard was information about George Meyer," Arrison said. "His nickname was ‘Devil,' and he was known throughout the Chicago underworld as the getaway driver in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of members of the Bugs Moran gang in 1929, although he was never charged with being part of that crime."

Arrison said the CVB is developing other new postcards highlighting Hot Springs' colorful and historic past and that these would be issued soon.

For more information call Steve Arrison at 501-321-2027.

March 29, 2006   Posted in: United States South