HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (KTHV) - Below the hustle and bustle of the Spa City, lies a secret many longtime residents don't even know about.
"You know, it's incredible. It's been here since the 1880's. It's amazing how few people actually know about this, and the ones that do haven't been down here," said Max Sestili, Stormwater Manager for the City of Hot Springs.
Once an open, flowing creek bed, the Hot Springs Creek Tunnel was built over 130 years ago and was designed to hold excess water from the bathhouses on historic Bathhouse Row.
"The oldest part is 14 feet high, 17 feet wide, and that fills totally up," said Sestili.
Some say the tunnel once served another purpose.
"The rumor was, that back in the day, Al Capone used this as a secret passage way to get to the brothel downtown crossing Central Avenue to get to the Arlington Hotel," said Sestili. In the early 1900's, Hot Springs was a haven for organized crime like gambling and prostitution and a popular hangout for big name mobsters.
"It was just the place to be. You might occasionally see Capone or Frank Costello or Lucky Luciano walking the streets," said Robert Raines, Director of the Gangster Museum of America.
Raines has studied the history of the Spa City's mobster era for years and knows the legends of the tunnel well.
"Legend had it that people could go down, and there was a bowling alley down there and people could come and go from the Arlington Hotel to the Southern Club," said Raines.
But the question is, are the stories true? Did Al Capone really use the tunnel as a secret escape?
"It's not likely that Capone, who was worth $31 million in 1928, not likely that he would be going in a creek!" laughs Raines. "There has always been a legend that it was an escape place, but most of the mob guys that came here were celebrities anyway so they were OK with walking up here."
While some of the stories may hold more fiction than fact, others remain a mystery.
"The gold? I haven't found that either, but you know what, they can hide that pretty good. I haven't gone through here with a chisel yet so that one may be valid," said Sestili.
The tunnel stretches over a mile through the city, all the way to Lake Hamilton. The tunnel floods easily and has caused flooding problems along Central Avenue in past years.
It is against the law to enter the tunnel without permission.
