With its iconic twin towers and Spanish-Colonial Revival style facade, the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa is the anchor of historic downtown Hot Springs. Generations of Spa City visitors — including gangsters, pro athletes and presidents — have made it their favorite place to stay, take a hot mineral bath, dance the night away, and have an adult beverage or two.
Hot Springs railroad executive Samuel W. Fordyce and two other partners, Samuel Stitt and William Gaines, put up the money to build the first Arlington Hotel, which opened in 1875. Fordyce is the namesake for both the Fordyce Bathhouse in Hot Springs and the county seat in Dallas County.
The original hotel was considered to be the first luxury hotel in the Spa City and at the time was the largest hotel in the state. The original Arlington was located across from the current hotel on the site now known as Arlington Park.
In 1893, Fordyce and his partners decided the property had become dated compared to the newer hotels in the city, such as the Eastman and the Majestic. So they demolished the Arlington and rebuilt it on the same site. The second hotel, known as the New Arlington, had an elegant Spanish-renaissance design, a larger guest capacity (300 rooms) and more modern amenities.
But a fire destroyed the second Arlington on April 5, 1923. The blaze killed one fireman and caused an estimated $1.6 million in damage (about $23.5 million in today's money). One notable guest staying at the Arlington at the time of the fire: William Pinkerton, founder of the security service that bears his name.
Hotel owners decided to rebuild again. But this time, they chose the site at the intersection of Fountain Street and Central Avenue across the street from the two previous structures. Designed by Arkansas State Capitol architect George Mann, the current Arlington Hotel was completed on Nov. 28, 1924.
During the 1930s, the Arlington was the choice hotel for notorious gangster Al Capone, who had his own suite, Room 443. When Capone was in town for gambling and other adult activities, he would rent the entire fourth floor for his entourage.
Throughout the years, many famous people including U.S. presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have been guests of the Arlington. Other notables include baseball legend Babe Ruth, humorist Will Rogers, and musicians Tony Bennett (who performed at the nearby Vapors Club) and Barbra Streisand.
In 1928, Joseph T. Robinson, a former governor and U.S. senator from Arkansas, publicly accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president on the front steps of the hotel. The speech was broadcast nationally by KTHS, whose studio was once located inside the Arlington and was the first radio station in Hot Springs.
In recent decades, the hotel operated as a shell of a former self, prompting city officials in 2016 to issue the Arlington’s owners a notice of unsafe conditions and threaten to close the building unless repairs were made.
Thankfully, the hotel’s new owners, Sky Capital Group LP of Little Rock, have mounted a $30 million renovation of the historic hotel. Construction crews have just completed the restoration of the Arlington’s twin towers and are making other repairs to bring the hotel back to its former glory.
So while you may not see Al Capone at the bar or Babe Ruth headed to the spa, you’ll soon be able to see the Arlington how it once looked decades ago, when Hot Springs was the Las Vegas of the South.
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