Irish-American hero to be honored
The city will kick off its annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration with a somber event to honor a highly decorated Irish-American who was buried in Hot Springs in 1938.
John King, who served aboard several warships during a career that spanned 26 years after enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1893, is one of only 19 people ever to receive two Medals of Honor.
King is buried in Calvary Cemetery at the intersection of Greenwood Street and Third Street. Members of Hot Springs veterans groups annually participate in the wreath-laying ceremony, which will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday.
A delegation of 24 Hot Springs residents plans to visit King’s hometown of Ballinrobe as part of a tour of Ireland in August.
“The Hot Springs delegation will include several members of the organizing committee for our annual First Ever Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs and one of the original organizers of the parade, said in a news release.
“We will visit with Ballinrobe city officials and lay a wreath at the John King statue that is located in their city center.”
The First Ever 14th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be held Friday on Bridge Street. The wreath-laying at King’s grave has been a part of the celebration since 2004.
“It is fitting that we here in Hot Springs honor this proud son of Ireland who became a genuine patriotic American hero in service of our country as we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a parade that has received dozens of accolades from Irish Central, the official clearing house for
all things having to do with Irish-Americans and their proud heritage,” Arrison said.
After serving in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine insurrection, King died May 20, 1938, at the Army and Navy General Hospital, now Arkansas Career Training Institute, after arriving here in 1937 for treatment.
King was born in Currabee on the outskirts of Ballinrobe in 1862. He emigrated to the United States as a young man and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in New York in 1893.
According to the U.S. Navy’s Naval History and Heritage Command’s website, King was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, in both cases for “heroism in the line of his profession” during boiler accidents.