I have an irrational aversion to bowling shoes and hot springs. Invite me roller skating and I’ll throw those rented skates on like a disco queen, but bowling shoes (even though there’s a sock barrier) always grosses me out when I first put them on. Invite me to your pool party and I’m in, but hot springs…nah…seems too peopley…not enough cloriney. I told you it was irrational. I love a spa day massage, but never use the public spa baths so our next stop was a curious one – Hot Springs National Park.
I have an irrational aversion to bowling shoes and hot springs.
-Wendy Heigel
For one thing, most national parks are not usually urban (e.g. Mount Rainer, Yellowstone or White Sands). Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas runs through the middle of a town. The park is a collection of 47 protected springs that gush about 700,000 gallons of 143F mineral water every day into established bathhouses. The only other national park we’d been to in a downtown prior to this was Harper’s Ferry and we plan to visit Gateway Arch (aka the St. Louis Arch).
The other, is this idea that in the early 1900’s these public bath houses were all the rage! In fact, scientists estimate that people have been drawn to these waters for the last 10,000 years. These springs were neutral ground gathering spots for different native tribes like the Caddo, Cherokee and Choctaw who called it the “Valley of the Vapors”. Oddly enough, it became neutral ground again in the 1930s when mobsters from Chicago, New York and LA came to socialize and enjoy the hot springs.
As early as 1832, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress established the Hot Springs Reservation to protect the area. This was 40 years before Yellowstone technically became the first national park. In 1921, Congress changed the name of the park to Hot Springs National Park (making it the 18th national park). This included the heart of the downtown area, which once housed tents over the top of the springs, but now housed the 8 unique, turn-of-the-century public bathhouses replete with marble, brass and stained-glass accents that are known today as “Bathhouse Row”.
In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, the hot springs became famous for their therapeutic benefits which were thought to help with polio and arthritis. Doctors would actually prescribe a tub day and for those of you that like hot springs you should be demanding to know why that’s not still a thing!
Hot Springs was also a place for exercise, relaxation, illegal gambling and bootlegging – a resort area that was nicknamed “The American Spa”. It attracted the rich and famous – gangsters Al Capone and Charles “Lucky” Luciano, boxing champion Jack Dempsy, performers Liberace, the Smothers Brothers and Tony Bennet, and presidents FDR and Harry Truman.
By the 1950s, changes in medical technology and the use of leisure time led to rapid decline in water therapies. Medical breakthroughs were coming at a fast pace with medications for infections, pain control, and vaccines. People started to travel the open roads versus travelling by train to a single destination and staying for a week. One by one the bathhouses started to close. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the National Park Service and citizens of Hot Springs began restoration efforts that allow for spa treatments in the area today.
Coming from Vicksburg, Mississippi (post here) we passed through Bernice and camped at Corney Lake. We then passed through Camden, Arkadelphia, and Bismark before staying again at Safe Harbor Brady Mountain. Then we drove through historic Hot Springs to a campground just outside of town that evening.
The next morning we went to the Hot Springs visitor center and walked around town, learning all about its history. If you’re really daring, you can still get a “traditional bathing experience” at the Buckstaff Bathhouse. You can get:
- A Bath – a steamy soak with forceful jets in an oversized vintage tub.
- Hot Packs – piping hot towels applied to your neck and back as you lie on steel gurney.
- The “Whirlpool Mineral Bath” – hop into a vapor cabinet, where you sit shut inside a vapor-filled toaster/cocoon with your head poking out or covered for steam therapy.
- A Sitz bath – designed for lower back, hemorrhoid, and prostate conditions with hot water therapy pumped into a bum sized sink. Sitz carefully!
- A Needle Shower – a rinsing shower to remove mineral salts.
Note that not all 8 of the original bathhouses are spas today. In fact, one is the park’s visitor center and another is a brewery.
Even if you’re squeamish about public baths, these turn-of-the-century properties are fun to see, the surrounding grounds complete with wonderful walking paths are beautiful, there are several public fountains to fill up your own water bottle with fresh mineral water, and the town has some other quirky attractions like a gangster museum, a water park, and a nearby alligator farm. In the end, we enjoyed this urban national park more than we thought we would!
