HOT SPRINGS -- Back in 1902, when visitors from across America were flocking by train to Hot Springs for its famous thermal baths, H.L. Campbell decided some other attraction was needed to keep folks occupied.
Tourist sites by the dozens have come and gone in the Spa City in the 112 years since. But the alligator farm founded by Campbell remains in business, boasting in its brochure that "in all probability, your great-grandparents visited."
Now known as the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo, the facility still exhibits gaggles of gators. Around 200 of the snaggle-toothed reptiles can be seen lazing in outdoor ponds, prior to their annual cool-weather move indoors (set for Oct. 25, when they'll be hauled inside by their tails).
Proprietors Jack Jr. and Sue Bridges have added a mix of other species, including mountain lions, timber wolves, fat-nosed guenon monkeys and ring-tailed lemurs. There's a petting zoo as well, where youngsters can feed deer and pygmy goats.
In the digital age, an alligator farm may sound downright old-fashioned -- maybe even evoking the vision of a squalid tourist trap. Happily, the Hot Springs site is clean and well-kept, reflecting obvious care by the owners and staff for the welfare of their nonhuman denizens.
Visitors may be shown around by Joe Cotton, a genial employee happy to share details about the alligators and other zoo residents. He'll offer intrepid visitors the photo opportunity of holding a gator (a young specimen with its jaws held shut by a rubber band).
Because alligators are cold-blooded, their behavior is greatly influenced by temperature. During the winter months inside the spacious shed that also serves as a gator museum, they'll be in virtual hibernation.
On display in the museum are the jaws of a venerable gator that died in August 1988 at age 76. This 13-foot-long specimen weighed 800 pounds. Also exhibited is a gator nest of grass and plants measuring 3 feet high and 7 feet across, in which a mother would lay about 50 eggs.
A highlight of visits in warmer months is the feeding of the alligators, scheduled to take place for the last times this year at noon today, Saturday and Sunday.
Mounted on a dirt island in one pond is a small tombstone whose inscription should erase any doubt that these reptiles are voracious carnivores: "Here lies a thoroughbred fox terrier killed by an alligator on this spot, Sept. 25, 1906."
A sign on the fencing of another pond marks a more salubrious event, which involved the legendary Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth. It took place on St. Patrick's Day 1918 when the young slugger, then with the Boston Red Sox, was playing a spring-training game nearby:
"A towering shot traveled from home plate at Whittington Park into the second alligator pond at the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo. The distance was 578 feet."
Presumably Ruth's mythic blast caused no injuries -- to either the gators or the intrepid soul who retrieved the baseball.
Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo, 847 Whittington Ave., Hot Springs, is open daily year-round except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Hours are 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $9 ($7 for children 3-12 years old). Call (501) 623-6172 or visit arkansasalligatorfarm.com.
Weekend on 10/16/2014