Picture Set [1], [2]
Hot Springs National Park
NPS statement: Water. That’s what attracts people to Hot Springs. People have used these hot springs for more
than two hundred years to treat illnesses and to relax. Both rich and poor came for the baths, and a town built
up around the Hot Springs Reservation to accommodate them. Together nicknamed "The American Spa,” Hot Springs
National Park today surrounds the north end of the city of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Headquarters
The hot springs only emerge in the Bathhouse Row area downtown because the town grew around the hot springs.
Hot water from a spring in this fountain.
Bathhouse row in downtown Hot Springs.All were closed for several years, one is now the visitors center.
Two others have reopened as bathhouses. The Lamar Bathhouse was built in 1923. It replaced a wooden structure
of the same name, the wooden structure had problems with rot. This bathhouse was in operation until 1985.
Buckstaff Bathhouse has been in service since 1912 and is one of two bathhouses in operation.
Ozark Bathhouse dates back to 1882. This building was completed in 1922 and closed in 1977.
Quapaw Bathhouse was built in 1922 and has a website. It must be the other in operation.
Fordyce Bathhouse was in use from 1915 through 1962. In 1989 it opened as the park's visitor center.
Maurice Bathhouse opened in this building in 1912 and closed in 1974.
The Hale Bathhouse was built in 1892 and remodeled in 1914 and 1939. In 1978 it closed.
Superior Bathhouse was the longest continuously used bathhouse on the row. The present structure opened
in 1916. It closed in 1983.
This stairway is located between the visitor center and the Maurice bathhouse. The stairway leads to the
Grand Promenade. A fountain of hot water exists in the center of the stairway wall.
Display springs to the left of the stairway.
The Grand Promenade behind bathhouse row. Guests strolled the promenade when not in the bathhouses.
Hot Springs Mountain Tower as viewed near the park's headquarters.
The 216 foot observation tower. This is the latest of a series of tower atop the mountain. The first was only
about 30 feet in height, just enough to be above the tree tops.
A view from the observation tower.
Picture Set [1], [2]
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