![]() The desire to revitalize Bathhouse Row also led citizens to campaign for adaptive uses of the vacant buildings. When the Lamar closed in 1985, it left only the Buckstaff still operating on Bathhouse Row.īathhouse Row and its environs were placed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1974. In 1984 the Quapaw (briefly reincarnated as Health Services, Inc.) and the Superior closed. The elegant Fordyce Bathhouse was the first to close, in 1962, followed by the Maurice, the Ozark, and the Hale in the 1970s. On Bathhouse Row, the eight grand bathhouses that had been thriving since their construction in the first three decades of the century suffered from the decline. The bathhouses, all of which are still standing today, ushered in a new age of spa luxury.īy the 1960s the bathing industry in the park and in the city had declined considerably. The final metamorphosis of Bathhouse Row was completed when the Lamar Bathhouse opened its doors for business in 1923. Between 19 the wooden Victorian bathhouses built in the 1880s were gradually replaced with fire-resistant brick and stucco bathhouses, several of which featured marble walls, billiard rooms, gymnasiums, and stained glass windows. The resulting improvements included a formal entrance, mountain drives, a lake park on Whittington Avenue, fountains, and a brick bathhouse for the indigent.īy 1901 all of the springs had been walled up and covered to protect them. The Secretary then authorized Stevens to salvage what he could from the Olmsted firm’s designs and complete other enhancements as he saw fit. The Secretary originally planned to retain Frederick Law Olmsted’s personal landscaping services, but after a series of misunderstandings and mutual dissatisfaction, the Olmsted firm withdrew. Stevens to oversee a number of ambitious landscaping and building projects in the 1890s. The Secretary of the Interior appointed U.S. ![]() Roads and paths were improved for the convenience of visitors who wished to enjoy the scenery. The haphazardly placed wooden troughs carrying the thermal water down the mountainside were replaced with underground pipes. This allowed room for landscaping in front of the bathhouses, creating the Bathhouse Row and you see today.The new Victorian bathhouses built between 18 were larger and more luxurious than could have been dreamed of ten years earlier. The arch was then covered with earth, and the area above it was landscaped to create a pleasing park bounded with Lombardy poplars. In 1882-83 the government enclosed Hot Springs creek in an underground arch for flood and sewerage control. The creek was also dangerous at times of high water and certain areas of the creek became mere collections of stagnant pools at dry times.Ĭolor Postcard of Bathhouse Row along Hot Springs Creek before the archway was built. ![]() As Hot Springs Reservation grew in popularity and population, it became an eyesore due to pollution. ![]() Hot Springs Creek, which ran right in front of all the bathhouses, drained its own watershed and collected the runoff of all the springs until the late 1880s. Starting in 1896, many of the wooden bathhouses were replaced with the bathhouses that we see today made of masonry and steel. As the bathhouses continued to grow in popularity, the park's superintendent deemed that more resilient and fireproof structures were needed. Later, businessmen built wooden structures, but they frequently burned, collapsed because of shoddy construction, or rotted due to continued exposure to high temperatures and humidity. The first bathhouses were crude structures of canvas and lumber, little more than tents perched over individual springs or reservoirs carved out of the rock. NPS photo, HOSP archives The History of Bathhouse Row
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