We walked down the Promenade to get to the Visitor Center.
I was dressed a bit differently that those who walked this path in the heyday of the baths. But, at 87 degrees, I think I was dressed for the weather better than these two, though I’ll have to admit that they are ever so much more stylish.
TOUR
OK, now for the tour. Sharon was our volunteer tour guide and she had a wealth of information and stories about the bathhouse. The Fordyce is 3 stories high with a basement. We started out in the Women’s Bath Hall where there were only 8 bath stalls and very simple stained glass.
Fordyce spent $1600+ on the stained glass windows. Doesn’t sound like a lot in today’s money but it sure bought some beautiful work.
Now, there were 21 bath stalls for men and theirs were more elegant, larger, had statuary and this stained glass window above the center to cap it all off.
Women were not the breadwinners in the family, did not have any money or property of their own (since when they married, their husband took it over) and their ailments were considered more psychological than real. You know: ‘women’s ailments.’ Thus, fewer baths, fewer massage tables, fewer cooling and dressing rooms. Makes sense, right?
The water from the springs comes down at 140 degrees so it is cooled to 110 degrees before you take your soak in it. Huge tub with no ? so you could get it filled as high as you wanted. Then you move into the steam room for 2 minutes of steam,
then to the pack room where you lay down on a table with 4 heated wet towels wrapped all around you for about 30 minutes. By this time you've been hot for about an hour. Finally you head over to the needle shower (where the water comes out from the sides in dozens of little streams)
to cool you down and finally you move into the cooling room.
Quite a process.
There were also special treatments for such diseases as syphilis. Arsenic was the preferred treatment but mercury made the arsenic much more effective. Here is the table where you got a full mercury massage and got to drink some mercury. You’ve got to be kidding. But also think about those who gave the massages with their hands in mercury all day.
Here is a chamber with light bulbs lining the inside where you could sit on that white round stool for 20 minutes. This light chamber was pretty hot and very close. Lean left, lean right, fall back or lean forward and parts of your body that have never had a close and personal experience with a light bulb will feel the heat. Note that the chamber is lined with mirrors to reflect the heat even more.
A few minutes her and then it was into the ice chamber. (Now, don’t we do this now? Heat and ice, heat and ice.)
And, then there was the electric bath. You lay down in this and the attendants slipped a small electric wire into the water and turned it on. Just a small current. Our guide told us that she had spoken with some people who had this treatment some time in their life and they said it was very relaxing, not what you would think.
At the end you’d go back to your dressing room and note how small it is. All the clothing you had to put on and this is all the space they gave you?
Finally, at the end, you would sit in the sitting room.
Beautiful room with small individually inlaid hexagonal tiles , stained glass on the ceiling and rocking chairs to relax in. Of course there is no AC and the patrons are dressed to the nines, wool suits, vests, starched high collars and wool long underwear for the men and lots of undergarments, long sleeves since no woman would show her arms in public, whalebone corsets and dresses with yards of material for the women. But, of course, they were used to the heat since no one had AC.
So, what about all those towels that were used in the bath areas? They were cleaned, by hand, in Happy Hollow, about a block away from Bathhouse Row where there was a spring. Do you suppose that those cleaning all those towels were as Happy as their work location?
Corn Hole was an excavated spring with a pool about ten feet square situated behind the site of the current Maurice Bathhouse. Reportedly you’d sit around the wooden benches, soaking your feet, men in the morning and women in the afternoon. And, after the soaking, for a mere 25 cents, he could remove your corns. (Remember, shoes back then did not have a left and a right foot shape, they were all the same and you had to wear them a long time to get them to feel even remotely comfortable.)
To us, medicine was pretty rudimentary in the early part of the 20th Century. But, back then, some of these treatments were the state of the art, the best that could be offered for some ailments. But then, 100 years from now, what will tour guides say to tour groups in our current clinics and hospitals? Will they laugh, will they scoff at our treatments just as we scoff at mercury or will they just roll their eyes at the impossibility of some of our practices? So what were the ailments that people came for? Rheumatism, arthritis, nervous disorders, syphilis, and other ailments. But many came just to be pampered. It obviously cost a pretty penny what with the treatments, the hotel bills, the food bills and everything else - it was a vacation for only the wealthy.
They did have an exercise room with all the current exercise equipment. Note the rings, the medicine ball, the boxing area, the gymnastics equipment.
Here’s what today would be called a Bow Flex. You could lay on your stomach to use this or on your back.
Even dumbbells.
Fordyce touted his exercise room as one of the finest. Women could also come in here, as long as they had their bodies covered, especially the ankles and arms which seemed to be the immoral parts that everyone thought had to be covered in the presence of men.
Hot Springs National Park Ranger James Cary was the first National Park Service ranger to be killed in the line of duty. He was shot by bootleggers while patrolling West Mountain on March 12, 1927.
exercise equipment
Marvelous tour and we had an extremely informative tour guide. The tour lasted 65 minutes and was well worth the time. We then walked around to see things better and read some of the signs.
Then it was off for our hike to the tower. Hey, here’s an ice cream parlor and only $2.00 for a single scoop. How can I pass this up? Gary can’t either and we’re soon enjoying a cool treat. But, we’ve got to earn that and we start up the hill to the observation tower. I’ve got a 5.5 mi hike lined up and we’re off. Beautiful hike, through woodsy forest listening to the fall leaves coming down and the acorns falling on rocks below. We found these beautiful berries.
Oops, check out those lines on that topographic map, this trail crosses them all - oh, no, this trail goes straight up. Huff, puff, huff, puff and finally we are at the top of the hill looking over the mountains and the valley below.
We then followed another trail, circling the mountain then descending on the other side, circling back and finally we are back at the beginning, the Promenade. We head back into town, take a few more pictures and then head back to the car.
Interesting day and we enjoyed it all. But we didn’t get any of the water from the springs. When you come, be sure to bring some jugs or other water containers to get some water from the fountains in town. Pure, clean, ‘flavorless, odorless, colorless’ as the NPS likes to say. Here are the springs all covered and locked to protect the water supply.
You can still stay at some of the elegant old hotels. This is the Arlington, the creme de la creme of the old hotels.
We head home, stopping at the first convenience store we find - to buy a soda. Soda after a hike - as a treat. ya hike, ya gotta have a soda that’s the reward. As if we hadn’t had a donut and an ice cream during the day. Looks like we’ve had lots of treats today. But the whole day was a treat.
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