calsfoundation@cals.org
November 26, 1935
Owney Madden, gangster and underworld boss in New York City in the 1920s, married a Hot Springs (Garland County) gift-shop clerk, Agnes Demby, the daughter of the local postmaster. Madden had retired to Hot Springs in the 1930s. Though his role in Arkansas politics and history will forever remain enigmatic, he was a powerful figure (from about 1935 until his death in 1965) during the heyday of illegal gambling in Hot Springs and an emblem of the bad old days of machine politics.