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11 Most Endangered
Bathhouse Row, Hot Springs National Park
Year Listed: 2003
Location: , Arkansas
Current Status: Favorable
Threat: Deterioration, Neglect
Latest News
On February 9th, 2009 a reception was held to celebrate the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), of Hot Springs, moving into the Ozark Bathhouse.
Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas. Bathhouse Row was on the 2003 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation
Significance
For thousands of years, travelers have come to Hot Springs to be healed by its curative waters. Today, Hot Springs National Park, the oldest unit in the national park system, protects 47 springs -- as well as eight historic bathhouses. Constituting North America’s greatest collection of these unique structures, the buildings along Bathhouse Row offer an intriguing glimpse of early 20th-century social practices and quirky wellness therapies. With their eclectic architecture and decorative flourishes, these facilities were once among the most luxurious in the world -- but not any more. Mothballing and basic stabilization efforts have kept them standing, but the long-term survival of these evocative links with the "Golden Age of Bathing" is dependent on the sensitive redevelopment and implementation of viable adaptive-use strategies. If the Hot Springs bathhouses are allowed to disappear, an elegant era of leisure and grace will run out of steam.
Updates
The National Park Service is now in the rehabilitation phase on Bathhouse Row. The buildings are being rehabilitated to a tenant ready condition. Two of the buildings have been leased. The first is the Quapaw Bathhouse which was signed on the park's 175th anniversary, April 20, 2007, and opened as the Quapaw Baths and Spa in July 2008. The second is the Ozark Bathhouse. The non-profit organization, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) of Hot Springs will be opening the building as a contemporary art museum in March/April 2009.
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