The Ohio Club
Hot Springs, Arkansas · New Century & Prohibition · Est. 1905 · Open today
Since 1905
John 'Coffee' Williams and his nephew Sam Watt opened the Ohio Club in 1905 as a bar and casino at 336 Central Avenue, naming it for their family's Ohio roots since the Illinois Club and Kentucky Club names were already taken. After Arkansas outlawed gambling in 1913 and national Prohibition arrived in 1919, it operated as the 'Ohio Cigar Store' — a front with a fake wall hiding the bar on the main floor and gaming tables upstairs. It became a haunt of Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, and local boss Owney Madden, while Al Jolson performed there in 1915 and Babe Ruth was a regular visitor during spring training. Gambling was curtailed by prosecutor Sid McMath in 1946 but resumed after 1948, and Hot Springs taxed gaming and liquor from 1958. Per the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the club has never closed its doors despite bans on both gambling and alcohol, making it Arkansas's oldest continually operating bar.
During Prohibition the club hid in plain sight as the 'Ohio Cigar Store,' with a fake wall concealing the bar — which is how it served Al Capone and Lucky Luciano without ever officially closing.
What to order: Its massive 1880s mahogany back bar from Cincinnati — reportedly barged down the river to Memphis, shipped by rail to Malvern, and hauled to Hot Springs on a custom horse-drawn wagon.
How solid is the claim?
Arkansas’s oldest bar — the evidence
The Ohio Club in Hot Springs is our featured pick for the oldest bar in Arkansas, with a claimed founding year of 1905. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, state tourism sources, and the bar itself all document continuous operation since 1905 — including its Prohibition-era run as the 'Ohio Cigar Store' front — and no credible rival claim to Arkansas's oldest bar surfaced in research.