HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The building on Central Avenue has housed the chamber of commerce, a drive-in mortuary and a bordello. Now, it will do time memorializing Al Capone, Owen "Owney" Madden, Lucky Luciano and other gangsters who took a break from big-city life to enjoy Hot Springs' soothing spas and blind eye to illegal gambling and prostitution.

"Until Tony Soprano came along, I probably couldn't do this," said Robert Raines, director of the new Gangster Museum of America. "I'm glamorizing these guys, and they weren't very nice people."

But according to local lore, gangsters put their differences on hold when they came to the Spa City, which remained a haven for illicit behavior until it was cleaned up in the 1960s on the orders of then-Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller.

"Everybody who was anybody came to Hot Springs," said Steve Arrison, executive director of the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We were Vegas before there was a Vegas."

Hot Springs' gangster heyday has been traced by many to Owney "The Killer" Madden, who moved to Hot Springs in the 1930s after spending time in New York's Sing Sing prison for manslaughter and parole violations. Madden married a Hot Springs woman, Agnes Demby, and settled here.

Among the items featured in the museum is a roulette table once used at the famed Southern Club. A 1929 Steinway piano passed down through Raines' family is the most valuable piece on display, though Raines said he expected the roulette table and vintage slot machines to be a big draw.

The museum contains tongue-in-cheek humor as well. Officials commissioned artist Margaret Kipp to do several paintings plus a piece that features the likenesses of Capone, Lansky, Madden and Luciano carved into a mountain. It's unnamed as yet, but there's a title Raines likes: "Mount Hushmore."