Rex Nelson: Hot Springs – Up From The Ashes

 

Up From The Ashes of the Majestic Hotel

The Following is an excerpt from Rex Nelson’s Southern Fried Blog, appearing after the fire of the old Majestic Hotel in downtown Hot Springs.

Rex Nelson Archive PageOne of the benefits of living in Little Rock is the lecture series at the Clinton School of Public Service. Interesting speakers make their way here from around the world, and the events are free to the public.

Few cities of this size have anything like it.

I had driven to the Clinton School early Thursday evening to hear a constitutional scholar speak. As usual, I made sure to put my cell phones (I carry two) on vibrate. Just before the lecture began at 6 p.m., both phones began to vibrate. For the next hour, they never stopped.

People were calling, texting and emailing to let me know that the Majestic Hotel in downtown Hot Springs was on fire.

A week ago, I had written an essay on this blog after plywood went up on the Majestic’s windows. When I was growing up in Arkadelphia, a trip to downtown Hot Springs was a trip to the “big city.” It’s where we went to eat out and attend movies. It was an exotic place with visitors from across the country, shoeshine men, the Chicago Tribune for sale in the Arlington lobby and all the other things we didn’t have next door in Clark County.

I love Hot Springs, and I had grown weary of watching its downtown decay. I also was tired of this being the elephant in the room with nobody speaking the truth.

In other words, I was mad.

So I wrote what I thought.

The majority of downtown hotel rooms are bad.

The city’s past glory has faded.

Some of its largest buildings are empty.

All the while, we kid ourselves into thinking this is still one of the great American resorts.

Who were we fooling?

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