Hot Time in the Old Town

Hot Springs, Ark. (pop. 38,000) is the hole in the doughnut of Arkansas’ 47 thermal hot springs that populate our country’s oldest existing national park. This urban doughnut hole is a supremely tasty one, stuffed with eccentric museums, tasty dining discoveries, local shopping ops and far more art than a town of this size has a right to (bravo!).

The frosting on this particular doughnut, and the prime reason the town has blossomed into a tourist mecca, is a line-up like no other of ultra-gorgeous bathhouses constructed between 1898 and 1923 to employ these thermal waters, hailed for their supposed healing powers, dubbed Bathhouse Row. One still functions as it did in those glory days (more on that later).

After landing at Little Rock’s Clinton Airport an hour away (Bill spent his high school years in Hot Springs), steer your rental auto to Hot Spring’s main drag, where The Waters, my accommodation, served as an intimate, cosmo resting place (New Orleans style breakfasts to rooftop view-cum-bar) anchoring the avenue. (Punching above its weight, the town offers 3,000 hotel rooms of all stripes.) It faces elegant Bathhouse Row, where eight of those classic beauty queens still flaunt their gorgeous facades.

One of them, the Fordyce, today serves as the town’s visitors center. Here, park rangers offer engaging free tours of the museum within the former bathhouse building — an ideal intro to the town’s vivid history.  

“Hot Springs, from its inception, was one giant hospital,” reveals Ranger Cane West as we gathered in the Cooling Room, offering “needle showers and Scottish douches,” plus “cabinets that bake you,” resembling torture devices more than therapy, if you ask me.

On to the lush entrée to the thermal tubs — a waiting room for High Society, rocking chairs and all — embellished with stained glass windows. We climb to the top floor, which functions as a huge gymnasium, popular with the town’s baseball team on rainy days.

“Back in the day, men were the primary thermal bathhouse users,” Ranger Cane relates, “seeking respite from venereal diseases.”

Back outside, he leads us to a spring beside the building, where we dutifully drink the water instead of lounging in it.

So far, so good: Back in the day you got clean and healthy during daylight hours, but … what to do after dark? The Gangster Museum tells all. Eight small galleries, each with a video narration and stuffed with artifacts, reveal that Hot Springs was “Vegas before there was a Vegas,” reveals our guide, “hosting the largest illegal gambling operation in the nation, backed by the mayor and police.”

“Al Capone considered this his second home,” he reveals, where the moonshine kept him coming back. Bank robbers and outlaws, including Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, were regulars. “People came for the hot water, or — heh, heh — to get out of hot water. The town’s banks were never robbed because the robbers were all hanging out here.”

Black Americans came, too, to what they called Black Broadway, where performers included Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The town’s primo madame, Maxine Malone, also did well until Winthrop Rockefeller, elected Arkansas’ governor, put an end to all the fun. The Ohio Club, next door to the museum, debuted in 1905 as a casino-cum-brothel, serving the gangster crowd as celebs like Mae West and Tony Bennet performed. Today it serves luscious burgers instead.

Just down the street, the Pancake House welcomed us for breakfast, as it has done since 1960, and career waitress Janey delivered fresh-squeezed OJ plus local sausage and from-scratch (“no mix!”) flapjacks for many of those ensuing decades. 

Plump and happy, we headed out of town to Garvan Woodland Gardens: 210 acres of serenity to explore amid fall’s bright foliage (look for daffodils in February, followed by hundreds of tulips) as fairy lights were readied for the Christmas season. Its Garden of the Pine Woods is considered the best Japanese garden in North America, while an adult-size tree house, further on, and a glass-walled chapel blend into their surroundings.

A bite of lunch at Kollective Coffee & Tea (try the Cuban sandwich) readied us for another tour — this time, art-focused. First stop: Dryden Arkansas Pottery, where third-generation owner-artists form and glaze elite clay vases and more, just as grandpa did back in his day. They’re not only lovely, they’re affordable, so feel free to fill your suitcase.

Next, a whirl through the town’s many, and diverse, murals, ranging from visions of a fairy-tale garden to a façade of baseball cards to one representing the town’s Black Broadway. Luck drew us to the spot where an Italian artist had come to town to work on a triptych mural echoing his visits to Japan. Justus Gallery, our grand finale, offers more upscale, and lovely, regional art. If you’re visiting on a First Friday, join the hordes on the monthly gallery hop.

The bathhouse experience is an art form, too. Here’s the drill: Line up in the early afternoon at the Buckstaff — the solo operator, these days — for a turn in the tub (men go left, ladies take a right). Fifteen minutes of supervised soaking are followed by a 30-minute massage. Then, feeling as relaxed as a spaghetti noodle, it’s time to seek dinner. Maybe just down the block at Superior Bathhouse, converted into a brewpub. Choose your brew, or a flight, then demand that superior starter called pimento cheese (or, okay, maybe the mustard and giant pretzel) while perusing entrée choices, such as my succulent fish & chips. It’s the only brewery using thermal springs water in a national park — and woman-owned, too.

Arkansas is the number-one state for rice growing in the USA. That’s what drew Ben Bell, a sake lover, to land here (plus the great water). Rice-based sake, he instructs at Origami, his site, is not distilled — it’s fermented.

“It pairs with many foods,” he instructs. “Drink it warm in winter, chilled in summer, but don’t age it.”

Once open, a bottle lasts (if you have willpower) up to two weeks. For tours and tasting, check the website at origamisake.co.  

Arkansas — namely, Hot Springs — is number-one in documentary screenings, too. Its annual festival, in its 33^rd year, is the oldest all-documentary festival in North America. We caught a movie covering President Kennedy’s evolving thinking when up against Alabama Governor George Wallace’s stand against school integration, which whetted our interest, then our appetites. Time for dinner! Make it one of the primo pies at Deluca’s Pizzeria, recently named “One of the Top 101 Best Pizzas in America” by Daily Meal.

Well, how about Best Barbecue? I’ll vote for McClard’s Bar-B-Que, making folks happy since 1928. Four generations later, the tender meat still wafts a come-hither hickory perfume. “Bill Clinton always ordered the chopped sandwich,” its owner reveals. Folks in the know line up for its famous tamale, too.

Time for a little shopping before we say adieu. “Oooh, you’ve been to McClard’s,” moaned the clerk at Stella Mae, sniffing my sweater as I wandered in. This is the place for sassy gifts like X-rated tea towels. Handbags salute the Wizard of Oz or Netflix All Day, while earrings drip with tiny corncobs, popcorn bags or buckets of KFC. Its neighbor, Wrapped, offers a little more elite assembly of gifts and accessories. For more ways to spend your time and dollars, check out www.hotsprings.org.