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De Soto’s Tank

Published: September 8, 2010

I call this “De Soto’s Tank” because it’s in De Soto Park, which in turn is in my hometown of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas. It was placed here by a Veteran’s group (VFW – Purple Heart, I believe), and in case you don’t know tanks from this era very well, the gun turret on this one is actually pointing backwards … towards the rear of the tank, in other words. This is to symbolize Peace… (It’s not “coming at you” in this shot – it would be driving away.)

There’s a lot of myths about De Soto and Hot Springs – mainly that he came here looking for some fabulous Fountain of Youth and that he was actually here at this location. In truth, he wasn’t interested in much other than gold, and probably did NOT visit this exact area (though you could say he was in the neighborhood).

The famous Hot Springs that are this town’s namesake are not the only ones in this region of Arkansas – and almost all that is known of De Soto’s expedition of 1539~1541 comes from a journal kept by a certain “Gentleman of Elvas” who was a member of De Soto’s party. He describes a “lake of hot water” near an actual Indian village, and there’s no geologic evidence that the hot spring water of this area was ever a “lake”, nor was there a village located right-at our Springs.

However, this is geologic evidence that such a lake existed in the Caddo Valley – near the present-day town of Caddo Gap – which is in fact where De Soto clashed with the Tula tribe (possibly Caddos), and other artifacts from the expedition have been recovered in this area too.

But you also have to keep at least three things in mind here: The exact route of De Soto’s journey has always been open for debate and probably always will be (and has been the subject of several symposiums at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville); The city of Hot Springs loves to claim the historical connection, and there’s no way you’re going to convince the local cheerleaders that De Soto was probably over in Caddo Valley when he found the Hot Water; and finally, both De Soto’s and The Gentleman of Elvas’ facts-and-figures were highly fudged in their favor … in other words, if they said they killed 2,000 Indians and lost 100 men – they probably killed 200 Indians and lost 1,000 men. Not only are these surviving journals of the expedition sketchy, but the information they contain should be considered suspect as well.

But I guess the real question of this post is: If De Soto had one of these tanks with him, could he have done any more harm?

Again, it’s questionable …