Garland County

Description

The county was formed on April 5, 1873, and named for Augustus H. Garland, Governor of Arkansas, U.S. senator, and Grover Cleveland's attorney general. Unusual natural resources have drawn visitors to the Garland County area since the 1500s. Hernando de Soto was the first famous person to "stay awhile" in the Hot Springs area of Garland County. In 1832, Hot Springs National Park, became the first national reservation set aside for recreational purposes and is the only National Park within a city. The 47 springs along the base of Hot Springs Mountain sustained a thriving American Spa that attracted the famous and infamous alike to its healing thermal waters for more than a century. Among them Sam Houston; President Theodore Roosevelt, who came to orate at the State Fair in 1910; President Franklin D. Roosevelt to celebrate the Arkansas Centennial in 1936; William Jennings Bryan; Presidents Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy; outlaws Cole Younger and Jesse and Frank James, who came to rob stagecoaches; gangster Al Capone; William "Bat" Masterson, who helped raise funds to rebuild the city after the fire of 1905; Carry Nation; Helen Keller; Jack Dempsey; Will Rogers; Babe Ruth; Joe DiMaggio; John Barrymore; and Douglas Fairbanks, to name a few. Almost a hundred years ago, major league baseball teams began coming to Hot Springs for spring training. The Chicago Cubs were first, followed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Boston Red Sox, and the St...

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