Hot Springs National Park: Fun Facts & Family Guide

Protected since 1832, these popular hot springs flow from nearby Hot Springs Mountain.

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The water bubbling out of the ground here fell as rain about 4,400 years ago. It soaked slowly down through cracks in the rock, travelling roughly 6,000 feet underground, where the Earth's heat warmed it.

Then it worked its way back up. It arrives at the surface at about 143°F, hot enough that you can't hold your hand in it.

Forty-seven springs feed the park, producing around 700,000 gallons a day. They flow from the slopes of Hot Springs Mountain in the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas.

Native American people used these waters long before anyone wrote about them. Word spread among settlers, and by 1820 visitors were digging crude bathing pools beside the springs.

Some locals wanted to fence the springs off and charge for them. Others argued they should stay open to everyone.

The second group won. On April 20, 1832, President Andrew Jackson signed a law setting the springs aside as a federal reservation.

That was forty years before Yellowstone became the first national park. It made Hot Springs the first land the United States government ever protected for its natural features.

A whole town grew up around the water. By the early 1900s, grand bathhouses lined the street now called Bathhouse Row, and people called the place the American Spa.

Everyone came. Baseball teams held spring training here, Babe Ruth soaked between practices, and gangsters including Al Capone found the town very welcoming.

In 1921, the reservation was renamed Hot Springs National Park. It's one of the smallest national parks and sits right inside a working downtown.

Tour the Fordyce Bathhouse, the fanciest of them all, now the park's visitor centre. Fill a bottle at one of the public fountains, where the thermal water is free to anyone who brings a cup. Walk the Grand Promenade above Bathhouse Row, or ride the tower elevator for a view across the Ouachitas.