![]() Amazingly, the mayor was neither charged nor removed from office.Īfter the newspaper editor recovered from his wounds, he renewed his attacks on illegal gambling and the mayor, as well as on several other prominent men involved in the gambling business. When the smoke cleared, Linde had shot and wounded Matthews three times, as well as wounding a peddler and city councilman who were in the line of fire. Shortly afterward, Mayor Linde, who also served as a judge at the time, was so angered that when he met Matthews on the street, he pulled out his pistol and began firing. One of these people was Charles Matthews, the editor of the Hot Springs Daily Hornet, who raged against gambling and Mayor T.F. Afterward, Lane fled Hot Springs and made his way to New Orleans, Louisiana.īy the summer of 1882, many people were tired of illegal gambling and some of the shady elements it brought to the city. ![]() During the attack, one of Lane’s dealers killed one of Flynn’s thugs. In response, Flynn, along with several other men attacked and wrecked the Palace Casino. ![]() Lane soon opened two high-end gambling halls - the Palace and the Monarch. Lane refused to align with Flynn or pay a percentage to him for the right to operate his business. One man who dared to do so was a gambling entrepreneur from Illinois named Jim Lane, who arrived in about 1880. ![]() By paying law enforcement officers of the Police Department and Sheriff’s Office, he prevented any intervention into his illegal activities. Flynn, most often called “Boss Gambler”, either owned or controlled seven gambling houses, and any who dared to enter Hot Springs and attempt to open up a rival gambling house were dealt with by the police. During this time, a Canadian gambler named Frank Flynn had arrived in the city and by the early 1880s, was in control of the gambling operations, as well as many of the brothels. Illegal gambling occurred in the city as early as the mid-1800s and following the Civil War, was firmly established. By the late 1870s, gambling had become an industry that rivaled the healing waters of the hot springs. Though visitors of Hot Springs, Arkansas today don’t see the gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, and gangsters that were once rampant in the spa city, these operations had a strong foothold for decades, especially in the 1930s. Central Avenue, Hot Springs, Arkansas, Detroit Publishing, 1900 ![]()
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