Hot Springs: Thursday - The Bathhouses

We hiked down to Central Ave, and came upon the famous bathhouse row. The first thing we saw was a fountain with some guy filling up about 50 (no I am not kidding) jugs full of the Hot Springs water. I joked that he was going to go to Texas and sell them for $10 a jug. He laughed and said that it was for him. City Water does not use the springs, but anybody who comes buy with a jug can fill up as much as they want, but be careful the water coming out of the fountain is about 140 degrees.

The first building we went into was the Park Administration Building. It isn't actually meant for tourists to visit, and when we went in the Park Ranger didn't know what to do. Once she realized we were just as lost as she was, she quickly composed herself and starting talking about all the things to see. We thanked her for her time and moved on.

Bathhouse row contains eight bathhouses. They are all owned by the park, but only two are run by it. Two are privately leased operational bathhouses, one is an art museum, and the rest are not currently open to the public, although one is supposed to open soon (as what I don't know).

Lamar Bathhouse is the Park's official gift shop. It has a couple of Park Rangers that will gladly give you a drink of the water (cooled down) and they give activity books to the kids. We bought a 64 piece National Park puzzle for the kids and got a magnet for my National Park magnet collection. On a side note, Mammoth Cave had a very nice hard plastic magnet that feels solid and well built. I was hoping all Parks would have a similar kind of magnet, unfortunately, we were unable to find one at Hot Springs, so I got a cheap magnet with a picture glued on to it. Here's hoping that the other National Parks do better.

Buckstaff Bathhouse is the only operational traditional bathhouse in Hot Springs. They will give you the same basic treatment that you would have received when they opened in 1912. They also offer other services, but they are proud of their traditional bath.

Ozark Bathhouse is now a Museum of Contemporary Art. The price for entrance was reasonable, but we just aren't that enamored with contemporary art, so we decided to skip it and find more interesting things to do.

Quapaw Bathhouse is a full service modern Spa. It was the location that Stacy chose for her spa day. They have just about everything she could want in a spa, and on Friday she planned on taking full advantage of it. For today however, we just kept walking.

Fordyce Bathhouse is a museum run by the Park that shows exactly how bathhouses were run in the 1930s. We took the full tour with an exceptional tour guide (there is nothing worse than a dull tour guide) and learned a lot about the history of Hot Springs and Fordyce Bathhouse in particular.





The remaining Bathhouses are Maurice, Hale, and Superior. Currently they are not open to the public.

We were lucky enough to get to the Fordyce Bathhouse just as a guided tour was starting. Shirley Goth was our tour guide, an excited elderly lady who absolutely loved Hot Springs, its history and the bathhouses. She showed us around the bathhouse and explained how things were done, what each piece of equipment was for, and who used it. While the subject material wasn't exactly exciting for the kids, she made sure to include them in the tour and make it fun for them. The Bathhouse was separated into three floors and a basement. The first floor had the baths that everybody used, the second floor had more exotic treatments, such as the hydrotherapy room, the steam cabinet room, and some strange stretching machines. The third floor had a gymnasium that looked straight out of the Biddle Bible Class. I really wanted to punch the boxing bag, but it was behind a railing and I figured that they would frown on be jumping the railing and using the gym. The tour ended in the assembly room. It was the only room in the Bathhouse where men and women were allowed to mingle. It was a place to go and relax. It had a piano, a pool table, and several tables. The Fordyce Bathhouse had several stained glass windows throughout the building all of which the tour guide made sure to make us all ooh and aah over them. The tour ended in the basement at the spring that the building was built around, the aptly named "Fordyce Spring".

 

Once the tour was over, we watched a video about the history of Hot Springs, visiting the only open spring behind the Maurice Bathhouse, and started our hike back up the mountain.