Geology of Hot Springs National Park

Water: The Main Attraction

During the Golden Age of Bathing over a million visitors a year immersed themselves in the park’s hot waters. They then strolled Bathhouse Row with cups to "quaff the elixir" at decorative fountains. Today visitors to Fordyce Spa fill bottles at jug fountains that dispense the odorless, flavorless, and colorless liquid. The water is tested regularly to ensure quality. Various open springs and the Hot Water Cascade above Arlington Lawn show how the area looked 200 years ago, before anyone built a bathhouse. All that steam gave rise to the vicinity’s nickname, "Valley of Vapors." Today green boxes cover most of the 47 springs to prevent contamination. The water was first protected for all people to enjoy – not just a privileged few. That tradition of active use is very much alive.

Geothermal: What Makes This Water Hot?

Hot Springs National Park is not in a volcanic region. The water is heated by a geothermal process. Outcroppings of Bigfork Chert and Arkansas Novaculite absorb rainfall in an arc from the northeast around to the east. Pores and fractures in the rock conduct the water deep into the Earth.

As the water percolates downward, increasingly warmer rock heats it at a rate of about 4 degrees F every 300 feet. This is the average geothermal gradient worldwide, caused by gravitational compression and by the breakdown of naturally occurring radioactive elements. In the process the water dissolves minerals out of the rock. Eventually the water meets faults and joints leading up to the lower west slope of Hot Springs Mountain, where it surfaces.

Restoring Bathhouse Row

When the bathing business began to decline in the 1950s, the bathhouses began to close their doors. Unused, the buildings fell into disrepair. By 1985 only the Buckstaff remained open. In the 1980s local citizens and the National Park Service began exploring ways to return the bathhouses and Bathhouse Row to the splendor, if not the function, of Hot Springs in its heyday.

In 2004 the park received the first of several appropriations to rehabilitate the vacant bathhouses and make them leasable. They are available for lease under the Historic Property Leasing Program. This is an example of merging the needs of the future with the preservation of the past, an essential element in revitalizing the Bathhouse Row National Historic Landmark District and downtown Hot Springs.

The Fordyce

In 1915 review proclaimed the Fordyce Bathhouse the best in Hot Springs. Now you can tour the Fordyce and see its original splendor. In 1989 the Fordyce, closed since 1962, reopened as the park visitor center.

After extensive restoration the bathhouse looks as it did in its early years. All of the women’s side and some of the men’s side of the building are outfitted with the furniture and equipment of the time: steam cabinets, Zander mechano-therapy equipment, tubs, massage tables, sitz tubs, Hubbard tub, chiropody tools, billiard table, Knabe piano, beauty parlor, and hydrotherapy equipment.

The park lies about 55 miles southwest of Little Rock, Arkansas, in the Zig Zag Mountains on the eastern edge of the Ouachita Range. The mountaintops are the erosion-resistant remnants of folded layers of novaculite and sandstone. Music Mountain is the highest point in the small mountain system and is the center of a great horseshoe-shaped ridge whose ends are Sugarloaf and West mountains. The hot springs are located on the lower western side of Hot Springs Mountain, opposite the southern end of the horseshoe. Dense forests of oak, hickory, and short-leaf pine dominate this region. Flowering trees are common here, and consecutive seasons have displays of colored leaves and abundant flowers. The redbud and dogwood bloom in the early spring, gracing the understory of the pine and hardwood forest. Song birds and small animals are abundant in the forest. Flowering southern magnolias give historic Bathhouse Row a special beauty, particularly in the early summer.

To Learn More About the Bathhouses at Hot Springs Click Here