Hot Springs National Park, Hot Springs, AR

This is a different national park!  Hot Spring National Park encloses the city of Hot Springs and some surrounding area.  It was created to preserve the natural hot springs in the area.
When word of the hot springs got out in the mid 1800s, bath houses were built, with permission of the government, to accommodate the throngs of people drawn to the therapeutic waters.  In the 1950s, the bathhouses began to close their doors due to declining use and the most of the building sat unoccupied until the 1980s when the National Park Service began exploring ways to restore Bathhouse Row to the splendor of not the function, of Hot Springs in its heyday.

The parks visitor center is located in one of these beautiful buildings.  At least one other is a spa where you can still get a tub bath, shower, steam cabinet, whirlpool and massage. A couple of the buildings are still being restored/renovated on the inside.  They all look beautiful from the outside as you can see below:

this beautiful terraced fountain is in front of the parking garage

one of the many springs that dot the terraced hillside behind Bathhouse Row

I put my hand in the spring below to check the water and  could not keep it in there!  The water comes out of the ground at 143 degrees!

here you can see steam coming off the water

There are trails up on the hillside which we explored a bit.  It was raining.....again;)  The trails were used as part of therapy for those coming to use the bathhouses for recovery from some ailment.