• water flowing over rocks into basin

    Hot Springs

    National Park Arkansas

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  • Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center Closed

    The Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center is closed until Fall 2013 for a major maintenance project. A temporary park Visitor Center, along with the park store, are located in the Lamar Bathhouse at the south end of Bathhouse Row. Call for more information.

Curriculum Materials

Park Podcasts offer supplemental information about the architecture of the bathhouses, treatments in the Fordyce Bathhouse, and the hot spring water. You might want to consider using them for listening exercises and enrichment.

Check back periodically to see what's been added.

 

Lesson Plans
(You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these .pdf files.)

Dunbar-Hunter Expedition of 1804-05, the first scientific expedition to the hot springs
(1.31 mb). Use with or without traveling trunk.

Investigating the hot spring water:
"Follow the Water" to learn about the hot springs, in particular how they are formed and what grows in them. (4.59 mb)
How hot is the hot spring water? This field trip field activity gives you the option of having the students measure the temperature of the hot spring water. Please allow at least 40 minutes for this activity in addition to the orientation about how the water is heated. The park has a set of 15 Celsius thermometers to use for this activity and optional Fahrenheit thermometers.

Keeping with the Routine: African American Bathhouse Attendants. Learn about working in a bathhouse when most bath attendants were African American.
(1.79 mb)

Bathhouses of Hot Springs National Park
Learn about when bathhouses were built and the varied architecture of each.
(6.77 mb)

 

 

Did You Know?

black and white photo of Rector's bathhouse, a small one story frame building near the edge of Hot Springs Creek

In May 1862, Arkansas Governor Henry Massie Rector moved the state government to his hotel and bathhouse located on Hot Springs Reservation, now Hot Springs National Park. That July, the government seat was moved further south to Old Washington for the remainder of the Civil War.