NWA Summer Memory Makers
Summer has a way of creating memories that families talk about for years....
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By the turn of the twentieth century, Hot Springs had become one of the most popular resort destinations in America. The thermal waters drew visitors from across the country who came to recover from illness or simply enjoy a leisurely time away. Wealthy travelers, politicians, entertainers, business leaders and even gangsters were coming to enjoy the grand hotels and elegant bathhouses that lined Central Avenue. The city buzzed with activity, and tourism had become one of its most important industries.
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System.
Like any thriving resort town, Hot Springs offered a growing list of attractions designed to entertain guests between treatments at the bathhouses. People attended horse races, baseball games, concerts, vaudeville performances and social events. It was a time when people were fascinated by anything exotic, and people came in droves to see the latest novelty, hoping to return home with wild tales and unique souvenirs. The opportunity to watch giant African birds race across a track, pose for photographs or purchase souvenirs made from their feathers and eggs was exactly the kind of novelty that made Hot Springs a memorable destination.
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System.
In 1900, Thomas A. Cockburn, an ostrich farm entrepreneur with experience in California and Texas, opened the Hot Springs’ Ostrich Farm in the Whittington amusement district. The area was already home to baseball fields, Whittington Park, Happy Hollow Amusement Park and the soon-to-open alligator farm. The 27-acre farm featured 300 ostriches and was both a tourist attraction and a commercial feather-and-egg operation.
The commercial side of the ostrich farm generated substantial revenue. In the early 1900s, interest grew in using ostrich feathers and leather in fashion apparel. Especially fine feathers could bring in more than $50 each. Theft was often an issue at the farm, and one 1906 incident resulted in the loss of over $1000 worth of feathers. Additionally, the farm sold adult birds, ostrich chicks and eggs. Eggs and chicks could bring about $10 each while full-grown birds would sell for between $250 and $500. Cockburn Ostrich Farm City Store opened on Central Avenue in 1911 and sold ostrich products to wealthy tourists.
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System.
What really put the Hot Springs Ostrich Farm on the map was its tourism end of business. Cockburn was a fan of spectacle marketing and was known to parade the large birds down Central Avenue pulling riders in carts. He likely charged high dollar for rides.
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System.
On-site racing was another feature of the farm. Records indicate the farm had a quarter-mile track, and the birds would race carrying a rider or pulling sulkies or carriages behind them. Black Diamond and Whirlwind became well known for their racing abilities and appeared at the Arkansas State Fair when it was held at Oaklawn Park from 1906 to 1914. Black Diamond was the farm celebrity who participated in races around the country and was supposedly never defeated. He reportedly still holds the American record of 1:00 for a mile race in Greenville, Ohio. Black Diamond was used heavily for marketing but was reported as having been killed in a fight with six other ostriches on the Hot Springs farm in 1924.
Courtesy of the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture
The farm declined after Black Diamond died, and the remaining birds were sold off by the end of 1933. The farm continued as a small zoo, even after Cockburn himself passed away in 1936. The site closed in 1953.
Cover photo courtesy of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System.
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