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Age of Baseball, Gambling & Mobsters in Hot Springs Arkansas

Thomas Wilmer

The town of Hot Springs, Arkansas is also a National Park, and by geographic area it's America's smallest Park. Join Correspondent, Tom Wilmer for a visit with Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs. 

Arrison shares the diversity of attractions from hiking in the National Park, to golf, and betting on the horses at Oaklawn Race Track, the home of last year's Triple Crown winner.

Arrison also talks about the town's historic connection with America's favorite pastime--baseball's first spring training camps came to Hot Springs in 1886 and continued coming through the mid-1940s. 

There's another fascinating historic dimension in Hot Spring--it was one of America's top gambling destinations king before the rise of Vegas, attracting Al Capone and other infamous gangters from around the country who loved to hang out in Hot Springs

Credit Thomas Wilmer
Credit Thomas Wilmer
Hot SpringsNPS vista overlook

Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts--everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.
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