Arkansas alchemy: In Hot Springs’s rebirth, a lesson for national parks

Hot Springs, Ark.–The rainwater that fell on Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto here in the 16th century is even now bubbling out of the ground into the historic bathhouse that Rose Schweikert has turned into a restaurant.

It has changed a lot since it first fell as rain some 4,000 years ago, picking up some carbon dioxide here, some acids and minerals there, and filtering about 7,000 feet below the Earth’s surface before shooting back up at a temperature of about 143 degrees F.

This small town nestled in the Ouachita Mountains has also changed a lot since de Soto’s time. A domain of Native American tribes, the French, and then the US, it has been a baseball haven, a gangster getaway, and a purveyor of reputedly healing water. Babe Ruth walked these streets. So did Al Capone. And so have National Park rangers, for almost a century.

Hot Springs National Park is not one of the most iconic national parks. It’s certainly one of the smallest: just 8.5 square miles right in the middle of the city of Hot Springs, Ark. But the park, and the thermal waters beneath it, fueled the area’s growth and prosperity for a century – until it didn’t…

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