Hot Springs, Arkansas

Ray Hanley, Steven Hanley

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780738508856
• eBook ISBN: 9781439611241
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Vintage postcards and photographs depict the history of this Arkansas resort, Hot Springs.From its rise in the 1800s until well into the twentieth century, Hot Springs was a famed resort known worldwide. The grand hotels and world-class bath houses that sprang up around the government-protected springs drew countless visitors, ranging from the famous and wealthy to those of humble means, all seeking the health and pleasure promised by the Spa City's promoters. In the words of a railroad tourist guidebook from about 1910, "A stay at Hot Springs, be it ever so brief, always remains a pleasant memory afterward. It was the writer's good fortune to spend a few days at this popular resort--not as an invalid, I am happy to say, but as a tourist--and I certainly never bathed in more delightful water than that which flows so abundantly from the hot springs of Arkansas. There is buoyancy, a magnetism about it that is simply indescribable." Such has been the experience of countless visitors over the years. Readers will find much of the history of this storied resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is profusely illustrated with vintage postcards and photographs, all carefully interpreted by the authors, Ray and Steven Hanley, with research assistance from Mark Blaeuer of the Hot Springs National Park staff.

Three

LODGING: FROM BUDGET TO FOUR STAR

In describing the lodging choices of Hot Springs in 1894, one souvenir booklet stated, “One may be rich, and wish to surround himself with every luxury; or poor, but still desirous of all possible comfort; an invalid, in search of perfect quiet and careful attendance; or in robust health, and on pleasure bent, or of a retiring nature, seeking only for seclusion and rest,” for in Hot Springs, “its five hundred hotels and boarding houses are of all grades and suitable for all sorts and conditions of men.”

Among the popular hotels for those of modest means in turn-of-the-20th-century Hot Springs was the Imperial Hotel, located at the corner of Spring and Cottage Streets. Positioned a block from Central Avenue, near the depot and “fifty feet from the post office,” the hotel had a published room rate of $1 per day in 1914, putting the establishment on the low end among hotels but slightly more expensive than most boardinghouses. Promoted features included “steam heat, electric lights, and hot and cold water.” The Imperial was razed many years ago; the site is today home to the Sentinel-Record newspaper.

Throughout the resort history of Hot Springs the most spoken name in luxury accommodations was almost certainly the Arlington Hotel, at the southeast corner of Fountain and Central. The Arlington was completed in 1875 and, until the construction of the Eastman Hotel in 1890, it provided the finest lodging in the city. After the grand Eastman opened, however, the Arlington owners quickly moved to raise a new, more elegant Arlington to compete for the “carriage trade” among Hot Springs’ visitors.

An 1894 tourist guidebook to Hot Springs said of the city’s hotel options, “To the wealthy seeker, after either health or recreation, he who is able and willing to pay for the best of everything, the Eastman, the Park and the New Arlington offer accommodations not surpassed by any hotel in America.” The 1893 opening of the “new” Spanish Renaissance-style Arlington on the site of the old served to keep the Arlington name at the forefront of hotel luxury in Hot Springs, at a cost of $550,000 to the Arlington Hotel Company. This postcard was printed in Germany around 1900, by “Raphael Tuck & Sons, Art Publishers to Their Majesties the King and Queen.” It was not purchased and mailed until 1907.

The above photo, looking south from Central Avenue, offers a contrast between the Arlington and its more modest neighboring buildings, mostly wooden structures remaining from the 1870s. At that time, the Arlington was the only hotel developed on reservation land owned by the federal government. It advertised the ability to accommodate 500 guests, with a listed price around 1910 of $4 to $8 per day; a course of 21 baths in the hotel’s own bath house would have cost $10 at that time.

A guest of the Arlington was but a few yards from the bustling shops and services across Central Avenue, which was still unpaved at the time of this c. 1900 card. The delivery wagon to the right is parked in front of the Dugan-Stuart building. The structure’s twin-splayed wings housed medical and other professional offices, and even a bowling alley on the ground floor.

The Arlington’s 25-foot-square twin observation towers rose 40 feet above the hotel’s roof, affording striking views of the bustling city and the surrounding mountains. The tower pictured here, on the northwest corner of the hotel, offered a view up Fountain Street into the area known as Happy Hollow, which was home to a popular outdoor photo gallery. The small but ornate Hot Springs Bath House can be seen to the lower left.

With some 300 rooms and a stated capacity for 500 guests at any one time, the Arlington saw many guests spending a part of each day seated in one of the chairs lining the 650-foot veranda that ran the length of its front. Seated on this porch, which spanned the length of two football fields, the guests had a ready view of the activity passing on Central Avenue a few feet below them. Those with luxury suites may have had access to their own private balcony above the hotel’s entrance, seen in the view below.

(Photos courtesy of Arkansas History Commission.)

Guests alighting from fine coaches at the front steps of the Arlington would have stepped into a grand lobby and then visited the registration desk, which was modeled after the hotel’s exterior arches. After checking in, the guests would have followed the bellman to the right ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• One - THE RISE OF AN AMERICAN SPA CITY
• Two - CENTRAL AVENUE COMMERCE AND DISASTERS
• Three - LODGING: FROM BUDGET TO FOUR STAR
• Four - AMUSEMENTS AND RECREATION
• Five - 1940 TO 1960: ERA OF CHANGING TIMES
• INDEX