  We report on the first measurement of the charmed baryon $\Lambda_c^{\pm}$
production at midrapidity ($|y|$ $<$ 1) in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$
= 200 GeV collected by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider. The $\Lambda_c$/$D^0$ (denoting
($\Lambda_c^++\Lambda_c^-$)/($D^0+\bar{D^0}$)) yield ratio is measured to be
1.08 $\pm$ 0.16 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.26 (sys.) in the 0--20% most central Au+Au
collisions for the transverse momentum ($p_T$) range 3 $<$ $p_T$ $<$ 6 GeV/$c$.
This is significantly larger than the PYTHIA model calculations for $p+p$
collisions. The measured $\Lambda_c$/$D^0$ ratio, as a function of $p_T$ and
collision centrality, is comparable to the baryon-to-meson ratios for light and
strange hadrons in Au+Au collisions. Model calculations including coalescence
hadronization for charmed baryon and meson formation reproduce the features of
our measured $\Lambda_c$/$D^0$ ratio.
