Arkansas, part one (June 2021)

Wel, well, welll…ThrowBack Thursday, you say? All right. If that’s the way it’s gotta be.

This week, the Wayback Machine doesn’t have to go way back – just over a year, to the last trip I took before I started blogging. (But this shan’t be the end of ThrowBack Thursdays, no no!) So let us go back, in space and time, to Arkansas in June 2021.

I have family in southern Arkansas, so the first few days of this trip were basically just hangin’ with the fam. No pictures or stories to report to the general public, except that we spent a day at Magic Springs Amusement Park. This was a decent park, but for the fact that the one roller coaster I was most interested in (X Coaster) was closed all day. I have to say, I always enjoy “runaway mine train” style coasters, but they tend to be rather small. This one (called Big Bad John) is definitely a mine train coaster, but also is definitely not small! Big Bad John is definitely one of the best of its genre. The one wooden coaster in the park, the Arkansas Twister, was enjoyable but nothing to write home about. As luck/fate would have it, Vanilla Ice was performing live at the park that night, so we stayed for that. Which reminds me, I need to go to another concert some time before I die. ANY concert. Because the Bible clearly states that if the last concert you went to was Vanilla Ice, you go straight to Hell. OK, enough of that!

A day or two later, I left the family behind and headed for Hot Springs National Park and the city of Hot Springs, which overlap one another. First, the park. This one is pretty small as National Parks go. There are some decent little hiking trails and some nice overlooks, but you can see everything there is to see in just a couple hours (or less). Here’s what there is to see…

By the time I got there, it was almost closing time for the tower, and it was crowded, so I chose not to bother with the tower. Besides, the real draw to Hot Springs (for me at least) was the historic downtown. Let’s explore it, shall we? First off, the Park Hotel…

Just down the street is the Arlington Hotel, the only one of the grand old Hot Springs resort hotels that still operates as a hotel.

Howe Hotel? Hotel OK. Hotel not what used to be.

The old Howe Hotel still looks pretty good, except…

Have you ever wished you could buy an Art Deco skyscraper in a town where no one would expect to find a skyscraper? Well, it appears someone has done just that! The Medical Building was the tallest building in the state from the time of its construction in 1929 up until 1960. Here it is in (photo) graphic detail.

Medical Building, formerly the tallest building in Arkansas

Those are the big bad boys of downtown Hot Springs. But there are plenty of smaller buildings worth lookin’ at. Here are a few…

If there’s a fire, you just hop out the window and walk down the fire escape…

Okay, those were all neat and stuff, but the real history in Hot Springs is Bathhouse Row. It seems that in the early days of Hot Springs, a lot of diseased poor folk were basically living at the individual springs, hoping the mineral laden water would cure various ailments. There were also a lot of rich folks who sought the relaxation and/or healing offered by the springs (but didn’t want to mingle with the poor), and a lot of entrepreneurs who wanted their money. The entrepreneurial spirit won out, and the U.S. Government (this was a ‘national reserve’ decades before Yellowstone became the first ‘national park’) capped the springs, piping the hot mineral waters directly into bathhouses where visitors could get the full spa treatment – for a price, of course. Let’s take a look at the bathhouses, in alphabetic order. First, the Buckstaff.

Over the latter half of the 20th Century, bathhouse patronage slowly declined. One by one, the bathhouses closed, until only this one remained. At the Buckstaff, visitors can still get the old-school bathhouse experience. There are multiple packages available; I went ahead and splurged on the most expensive one ($94), to find out why this was such a popular thing back in the day. The first thing I learned was that this is not a group thing. I’ve been to Glenwood Springs (Colorado) and seen photos of many like it, where everyone gets into one big pool. Not so in the Hot Springs bathing experience. There are individual bathtubs, each in a private stall. Also, the building is divided in half; men bathe on one side of the building, while women bathe on the other side. This is because ya actually get nekkid. Overall, it was an interesting experience, worth trying once. Once!

Next up, alphabetically speaking, is the Fordyce. This one has been converted into a museum. Since it’s not in operation, you get to see both the mens’ and womens’ facilities. This place is definitely more ornate than the Buckstaff, so it’s worth doing both.

Note the lettering in the stained glass.

Next up is the Hale. I have nothing to say about this one apart from, “Look at it, DAMMIT!”

Next we have the Lamar. Built in 1923, it has some nice art deco styling on the inside. The lobby is now a gift shop. I bought a hat, since I had forgotten to bring one with me and my scalp was getting sunburned. But that’s irrelevant; here’s the Lamar…