April 20, 2018
Today we spent in Hot Springs touring the bathhouses, having lunch and going up to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. Part of Hot Springs is a National Park, including the bathhouses. The other side of the street is part of the city of Hot Springs. We started at the National Park gift shop where I got my National Parks Passport book and my first stamp. Here are some of the bathhouses along bathhouse row. The Lamar, the Buckstaff, the Ozark, and the Quapaw. Notice the Indian head design over the entrance of the Quapaw. The bathhouses were for the very rich of the era. Most of these pictured were built in the teens and 20s. After WWII they declined in popularity and most of them closed. Only the Buckstaff and the Quapaw are operational today.
Then we went to the Fordyce bathhouse, which is the visitor center and museum run by the park service.
One of the park rangers gave us a tour which was very informative. We learned a lot more than if we had walked around on our own. Here is one of the tubs.
There was one room where they did some things that seem a little strange to us today. The picture below is of two methods of getting rid of bad stuff in your body. In the box on the right it had light bulbs to make it hot; the one on the left had a block of ice to sit on. You would go back and forth for about 20 minutes.
The picture below is of their version of a shower with multiple heads. We still have those today.
Below is the Hubbard Tub Room. They had a track in the ceiling and brought people up on the elevator to lower them into the tub. The sign explains it more.
This was the third floor lounge. All of the floor tiles were laid individually.
This is the gym, also on the third floor. I walked in and it reminded me of my high school gym.
This is their version of our modern day BowFlex.
Here is the electromassage room. While this seems archaic it's not much different than our modern TENS units. Notice at the bottom of the sign it says the room was converted into a mercury rub room. There was a machine in the room with the hot/cold boxes that actually injected mercury into your body. They also injected arsenic. I wonder how long they lived after those 'treatments'.
By this time we were getting hungry, so we went across the street to BubbaLu's Bodacious Burgers and had a couple of cheeseburgers. It was really good!
After lunch we walked to Mountain Valley Spring Water. We bought a sampler of their spring water and flavored bubbly waters.The building used to have a drinking lobby where people could come, sit, and drink the water. It was used for everyone from racing horses to presidents. It's a beautiful old building.
Our next stop was the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. It was at the top of a switchback road, and then you take an elevator to the top of the tower. The views were just beautiful. This is a picture of downtown Hot Springs. The green part in the forefront is in back of bathhouse row and part of the National Park.
It was a fun day!
