Bathhouse Row

Bathhouse Row is the reason Hot Springs exists. Along a single stretch of Central Avenue stand eight bathhouses built mostly between 1892 and 1923, their Spanish Colonial, Renaissance Revival and Classical Revival fronts set behind a tree-lined promenade and a lawn that doubles as the town's front yard. Together they form the heart of Hot Springs National Park, the smallest national park in the United States and the only one that is wrapped around a living city. The park began as a federal reservation in 1832, decades before Yellowstone, to protect the springs themselves, and the buildings you see were the answer to a simple question: how do you bathe thousands of visitors a day in naturally hot water without wasting any of it? The result is a row of palaces for washing, each with its own marble, tile, stained glass and hydrotherapy rooms, and a tradition that drew presidents, ballplayers and gangsters to the same address.

Walking the row takes about an hour if you stop to read the signs and much longer if you go inside. Start at the south end near the Fordyce, which is the National Park Service visitor center and a museum of bathing history, then drift north along the front. Each building has its own personality: the Buckstaff, still operating the traditional bath it has offered since 1912, the Quapaw with its tiled dome and modern spa pools, the Superior, whose thermal water now feeds a brewery, the Lamar and the Maurice with their handsome shaded porches, and the Ozark and Hale at the north end.

Some of these buildings are open to the public in new roles, and others are still being reimagined, so treat the row as a living streetscape rather than a fixed list of attractions. Check the National Park Service pages before you go to see which doors are open that day.

The water itself is the quiet marvel. Rain that fell on the Ouachita Mountains thousands of years ago seeped deep underground, was heated by the earth, and rises today at roughly 143 degrees Fahrenheit through dozens of springs on the slope above the row. Pipes carry it to the bathhouses and to the public fountains, and the fountain nearest the row will let you fill a jug for free.

A good plan is to arrive in the late afternoon, when the stone glows and the street cools, walk the row end to end, step into the Fordyce for the exhibits, then take the Grand Promenade, a brick path behind the buildings, for a view back down onto the roofs. In spring the dogwoods and redbuds line it, and in autumn the hillside turns red.

Plan around weather and hours. The promenade and fountains are open all day, the visitor center keeps regular daytime hours, and the bathhouses operate on their own schedules. Parking downtown is easiest in the lots and garages nearby, and the whole row is flat and stroller friendly along the front, with steeper grades only on the hillside trails. Pair the walk with a soak, a meal on Central Avenue or the Gangster Museum, and you have the classic Hot Springs afternoon: history, hot water and a good seat to watch the town go by.

A few small details reward the curious. Look up at the cornices and rooflines, where each bathhouse chose a different style to stand out from its neighbors. Look down at the brass markers and plaques that explain who built what, and look across Central Avenue to the old shops and hotels that grew up around the baths. The row was designated a National Historic Landmark District in the 1980s, and in the decades since, the park has worked to keep the buildings in use so they do not become museum pieces.

That is why a walk here feels alive: you will pass people carrying towels, a brewery patio, a bath attendant on a break and kids racing along the promenade. Come once in daylight and once after dark, when the lights come on and the fountains glow, and you will see two different towns.