05/15/2019
Hot Springs National Park is really hopping these days.
Highway 70 is now a brand new ... 5 lane ... quick and easy cruise through the Zig Zag Mountains as you drive in from Little Rock.
Oaklawn Park won the vote and will soon become a Big Casino with a Hotel Tower overlooking their world class race track ... where fabulous thoroughbreds are launched from the Arkansas Derby to enter the running for the Triple Crown of horse racing ... like American Pharaoh did not long ago.
The historic architecture of our World Famous Geothermal Paradise appears to be about 80 percent restored.
Bathhouse Row is the place to go to soothe in the pure ... hot ... colloidal ... mineral liquid that rises from deep beneath what Native Americans called the “Valley of the Vapors” ... Holy Ground ... where magical healing waters trickled down from numerous calcified “Tufa Mounds” that had formed on the side of “Manatakah” ... the breathing mountain!
What a history!
The legend of the Hot Springs compelled President Thomas Jefferson to send a second expedition into the Louisiana Territory ... while Lewis and Clark led their expedition up the Missouri River toward the Rocky Mountains ... Hunter and Dunbar sailed, paddled and dragged their expedition up the Ouachita River into the wild “Interior Highlands” of Arkansas ... to investigate the unusual geothermal springs that were rumored to be the “Fountain of Youth” as sought by earlier Spanish explorers ...Ponce de Leon and Hernando de Soto.
There had to be something extra special about these waters as President Andrew Jackson claimed the site as America's first federal reservation!
Soon people from everywhere flocked here to soak in the steamy waters ... which trickled down the mountain and blended with the cooler waters of Hot Springs Creek.
As more people came ... the site evolved into a Wild West Town ... where Jesse James and his gang robbed their first stagecoach ... hiding out on a nearby mountain top in an ancient novaculite mine.
Not long after the game of baseball was invented ... the coach of the Chicago White Stockings brought his team to the “Springs” for spring training ... when Florida was still a big undeveloped sand bar.
They drank and bathed in the magic waters between practices and returned to the north to win a national championship ... crediting the geothermal springs of Arkansas as the secret of their success.
This caused many other teams to flock down here from the east to train and partake of our precious colloidal liquid ... famous players like Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean and Honus Wagner spent many springtimes in the Springs.
It was here at Whittington Park that Babe Ruth smacked the ball over the pine trees during an exhibition game ... across Whittington Avenue ... and into a pond at the Alligator Zoo ... measuring 576 feet ... a world record for that time.
Eventually the town of Hot Springs became world famous as “America’s Spa” ... becoming quite a wild place where notorious Mafia figures like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Bugsy Moran ran their speak easies ... trading in illegal liquor, gambling and prostitution ... with impunity.
It was a very busy place for natural healing ... and sinning ... until modern medicine, ... big pharma ... and Governor Winthrop Rockefeller came along and took the hey out of the heyday.
America’s Spa then suffered a long decline ... the bathhouses closed and fell into decay ... and the tourism became seasonal with the horse races.
But things are rapidly changing in Hot Springs and it appears that America’s Spa is making a great comeback!
Hot Springs National Park is a very special place ... it’s waters continue to flow ... and it still has that magic aura about it.
♥️⚡️
