Hot Springs & Little Rock: Exploring Arkansas

Bathhouse Row is once again an elegant and proud place. Thoughtfully restored in the last decade after years of decay following the collapse of Hot Springs’ illicit economy, the eight buildings now form an impressive collection which speaks of quality and indulgence. Once again visitors flock to the town to enjoy the calming – some say healing – properties of the pure, hot waters from the springs.

The adaptation of the bathhouses to the modern day vacation market has been cleverly done. Five of the bathhouses have been developed into your typical spa resort destinations with attractively presented updated facilities and prices to match. One has retained more of the original equipment and is only open for walk-ins rather than appointments and is more modestly priced; one, pleasingly, has been turned into what is effectively a bathhouse museum, restored to exactly how it would have been in its heyday. The eighth, would you believe, is now a brewery – and a brewery which claims to be the only one in the world which uses water directly from hot springs in the brewing process.

Predictably, I suppose, we take the walk-in option and ignore the ones which look overpriced and threaten to be the same as spas anywhere else on Earth. Equally predictably, we visit the museum and, of course, the brewery. 

The bathhouse museum is in fact completely absorbing, partly because it is fascinating to see the primitive looking clunky equipment that was state of the art back then, including some implements which brought electricity and water into dangerous looking proximity, and partly because despite its heavy duty look, you can clearly see how the equipment really does constitute direct forerunners of today’s gyms and spas.

Males and females were separated and there was strictly no crossover; most likely because all treatments were enjoyed in the nude. Outdoor rest areas were similarly segregated, men sunbathing naked but women were requested to don togas – suntanned flesh on a female being seen as unattractive and unflattering.

When we leave the museum and enter the walk-in bathhouse, we are amused to see that not too much has changed, the equipment and treatments here still look pretty archaic despite being back in use and in reality aren’t so different from the museum. As in days gone by, Michaela and I have to go our separate ways, male and female treatments being on different floors, but then pass through identical sequences: first climbing into a hot bath of agitated water more like an oversized food whisk than a jacuzzi. 

Next there is the “sitz”, a kind of ceramic chair which sprays hot spring water on the small of the back, followed by a session in a “steam box”, one of those hilarious looking contraptions which only leaves the head visible. We finish with hot towel treatment, a 20-minute body massage which is over all too quickly, and finally a hot wax bath for the hands. We actually feel pretty damn good afterwards. And, in case you’re wondering, the brewery is good, too.

We came to Hot Springs expecting to do some mountain hiking, but become so absorbed in the bathhouses and particularly the gangster history that we end up following just a few hilly trails and the hiking boots never make it out of the car. We do though take a DUKW tour – never done one before – out through the suburbs and across Lake Hamilton where the skipper seems intent on pointing out each sumptuous lakeside mansion and telling us how much they last sold for. It’s still fun, though.

Grey skies and rain blight a lot of our time in Hot Springs, and the locals are complaining about humidity levels – they must be used to breathing mountain air because it doesn’t feel at all humid to us. It rains a lot though and, admittedly, we do get a couple of long lasting thunderstorms which would support the locals’ case.

I did not want to come to Arkansas without taking a trip over to Little Rock, scene of one of the most significant chapters in American social history and the fight for racial equality. For a few weeks in September 1957, this unassuming town became the centre of national attention with no less half the population of the entire country tuning in to live TV broadcasts as the astonishing scenes unfolded.

This was, of course, the story of the Little Rock Nine, a group of black teenagers, and their families, seeking the right to be educated to the same level as their white neighbours. As federal laws began to address desegregation throughout society, and the Civil Rights Movement began to gain momentum, the southern states sought to defy directives and continue to segregate. Arkansas, led by the infamous and bigoted Governor Orval Faubus, was at the forefront of that battle.

The nine children, walking to school on their first day, were met with an angry mob, hell bent on keeping blacks and whites separate and with some, appallingly, calling for the nine children to be publicly lynched. There are in existence some television interviews with locals openly saying that they would happily do the lynching. The nation’s press descended on Little Rock and the scenes of brutal violence were broadcast live on screens the length and breadth of America – this at a time when TV was in its infancy and live news broadcasts were a novelty.

Governor Faubus, under pressure from federal Government to obey the desegregation laws, solved his problem by closing Little Rock’s schools altogether and denying education to all; the youth of the town lost a full year of schooling. As the White House responded, Arkansas’ state laws perpetuating segregation were overturned by the Supreme Court, the very first time this federal body had acted in such a way.

Ultimately President Eisenhower lost patience with Faubus and with Arkansas, and sent in an astonishing 1,200 troops to keep the peace, quell the riots, and usher the Little Rock Nine into their new mixed classrooms. The Nine, and their families, had won, and segregation was on its way out. Nine children, and a little town in Arkansas, had paved the way for change. There were, of course, other simultaneous developments across the USA, but the broadcasts from Little Rock had shown the violence first hand to the nation.

Of course, the Nine had to battle on. The offsprings of bigoted parents will be bigoted themselves, and the Nine faced threats, abuse and ostracism for a considerable time to come. But they fought on, somehow finding the strength of character to continue to stand for what is right even in the face of extreme adversity. 

The whole story is told in a rather excellent museum and visitor centre across the road from the school, a school which now stands for equal education for all yet still looks pretty identical to how it did through that awful but powerful year. We feel privileged to stand on the very spot where such a significant and auspicious piece of history unfolded.

Dotted around the museum are a large number of quotes from the time, some displaying appalling bigotry and racism but most providing a wonderful narrative on the determined fight for equality. We had looked forward to visiting Little Rock and reading first hand accounts of the time. The experience of doing so doesn’t disappoint, though some of the footage of extreme violence is harrowing.

It’s been a pretty remarkable few days in Arkansas, one way and another.

Fittingly given our time here it’s beneath more grey skies that we leave Hot Springs behind and head off towards the music fans’ mecca of Memphis. Most of the journey is on the straight, nondescript I-40, heading towards the state line which in the end doesn’t appear until we’re crossing the Mississippi on the very edge of Memphis itself.

After spending time in each of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, our next three stops will be in Tennessee. We’ve been looking forward to this next stretch for a very long time. It’s Memphis next….

FOOTNOTE: Whilst in the ladies’ section of the bathhouse, Michaela was approached by another customer in the midst of treatment: a lady who didn’t seem to be able to take her eyes off Michaela’s legs. “Excuse me, ma’am”, she says, “do you have one leg shorter than the other?”. Michaela is not aware of any such problem, but the lady lifts Michaela’s legs by the ankles, and claims that her point is proven. “Do you mind if I pray for you?”, she asks, and proceeds to pray to God that Michaela’s shorter leg is lengthened. Michaela, being only five feet tall, secretly wants to ask this lady to pray for both legs, not just one. But she stays quiet, and, she tells me, just a little unnerved.