Bathing With Al Capone At Hot Springs National Park

typical national park. In fact, it couldn't be more different from places like Yellowstone Olympic or even the Everglades. That's right here in the heart of this bussing little Arkansas mountain city. Hot Springs National Parks serves up history and heritage with the side of craft beer and bath salts, and it's well worth a visit. Hi, I'm Matt and

I'm Brad. This is park Landia. We packed up our life in Chicago, moved into an RV, and now we're traveling in the country full time, visiting America's national parks. And today we're talking about Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. Thanks for listening. History, Hot Springs National Park is really a little odd bowl of a park. I mean, for starters, it's tiny, one of the smallest national parks in the country. It's only about yeah, So to put that in perspective

a little bit. By comparison, the largest national park in the US, Wrangle st Olias and Alaska, is thirteen point two million acres. You can fit a lot of Hot Springs there. Yeah, and actually it's primarily an urban park. I mean, there's some nature, but most of the park is actually situated around the town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, right, which is a historic, vintage looking town amidst these rolling green mountains in the Wachita Mountain range near the Ozarks. Yeah,

it's an old park too. Even though it wasn't made an official national park until nineteen it was initially protected as Hot Springs Reservation by Congress in April of eighteen thirty two. So, in other words, this was the first time the US government had ever set aside land for protection any forum. This was almost a full century before the National Park Service became a thing, in a full forty years before Yellowstone became America's first national park. It's

pretty crazy and amazing stuff. Yeah, I think that made this place so special to begin with, and why they designated it and where their protection is its namesake thermal waters, which have a long and said to contain medicinal properties and be revered both by neighbor Americans and apparently also by gangsters and baseball players. Because sure, yeah, the hot springs flow off the western side of the Hot Spring Mountain and they're the primary reason the place has been

preserved as a National park, right. I think one important thing to clear up about hot springs first and foremost is that this isn't the type of place where you can take a dip in natural hot springs in the woods. There's actually none of that here whatsoever, which might be a bummer to some people. I know, like when I was first thinking, like when I was younger, I like think of hot springs Artawark, I would assume that there

were these natural springs like in the woods or something. Instead, the National Park conserves this amazing water for public use in other ways by managing the water flow and pumping into the town for use in these ornate spas and bathhouses, and even in drinkable form and sparkling water and beer. Yeah, people have long been flocking here for those springs and

especially those bath houses. In fact um Hot Springs, Arkansas earned the nickname the American Spa due to the largest number of thermal treatments and spas along what is now called Bathhouse Row. Yeah. I love that. So this main street forms the heart of the park, this Bathhouse Row. But this lineup of gorgeously designed, huge, luxury, luxury bathhouses, each one with this gilded aid to architecture that looks

like something off the Titanic or something. It's incredible. And this road features these beautiful fountains billowing with steam that kind of interspersed along the sidewalks like between these buildings. It's really beautiful. Yeah. At one point all these buildings were used as actual bathhouses and spas, but nowadays only two of them are still used for this purpose, as most others have been repurposed into visitor centers, museums, and a brewery. But more on that later. Yeah, I'm shomping

at the bit to talk about that brewery. I love it. Yes, so cool. Yeah, bath House Row is actually so cool um that it was actually designated a National Historic Landmark all on its own in n Yeah, that's the year of my birth. So I now feel and you found kinship with bath house row we're both the same. Well now it's been around long time, so we're not in

the same so that's ridiculous. But anyway, today the only two bathhouses still in use for their original purpose are the buck Staff and Quapa buildings, both of which offer these elaborate spas, services and treatments. Yeah, and back in the day that people soaked here because the thermal waters are said to help cure things like um rheumatism. And since there's been so many health advances in the past century,

that's why the bathhouse culture has taken such a decline. Yeah, kind of kind of aboutmer I guess, but it's really cool, I mean, not about our it's good that health advance has happened. What am I saying? Um, it's really cool to come here though, because it's like kind of traveling back in time to this like byron Ornate era, and you get to luxury it a little bit in that and the only thing missing really is like champagne. While we so okay, I wish we could have had that.

I think like when we took our bath, we asked if alcohol us aloud and they're like no, and we're like, well, what a shame, you know, that shame right, geology. But let's talk about the basic water facts first, like the fact that the park contains forty seven natural hot springs pumping out more than a half a million gallons of water per day. It comes out of the ground at three degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, it's definitely hot or in that designation, and much of that water being pumped out that's much

too hot for bathing. So thankfully they cooled down to a comfortable jacuzzi like temperature for use in the bathhouses. Very comfortable. Yeah. But even though there was like some hot springs here for centuries, the town wasn't always filled with bathhouses and fancy tubs. No, no, these aren't naturally

occurring bathhouses. For thousands of years, indigenous tribes lived in the area, and they're the ones who discovered these hot springs and how they could be used, and so they started to use the hot thermal waters for their healing properties. They called this place the Valley of Vapors, which I love that name. I think it's so cool. Yeah, they had these crude hot like structures that they build along

Hot Springs Creek. So this is like a far precursor to these opulent like mansion looking buildings on bath House Row for sure. Yeah, I know it's unfortunate because you know, as the case with too many settlers and developments. The Native Quapa Indians gave up their land to the U. S Government in eighteen eighteen, and they were basically forced onto nearby reservations. Yeah. Arkansas then became an official state the following year in eighteen nineteen, and the area is

quickly set aside for protection. Then fast forward a couple more centuries and Brad and I are taking a dip in some of the famous and legendary water. Yeah. The bath was really nice and relaxing when we went, I mean, we did a couple soak and had our own little private room. So nice. I'm so glad we did that.

That was really relaxing and perfect. The bathhouse also has this huge communal tub which looked beautiful like this ancient, reminding me of like an ancient gigantic Roman bath or something, with these little waterfalls splashing into this gigantic mega tub and these these like chic lounge chairs all around the room. It was really lovely, but I think we both needed, like we just wanted kind of more privacy. We didn't

want to be like floating around with a bunch of strangers. Yeah, and we also got to select our own bath salts um that we want to use for the soak because we had the private room and it's nice because the water pumps in from a jet. Just imagine when we were here, we took in the same types of old fashioned tubs that al Capone used to soak in. Yeah, and just think too, he used to live in Chicago just like us and visit some of our favorite restaurants

like Italian Village. He even has like his own booth at Italian Village, or at at least they pointed out and tell you so. So between our Chicago connection and the fact that we essentially took a bath with al Capone in spirit, yeah, I mean he was a bumbed right down the street from we have like a weird connection to al Capone. This really just cemented it. And

I've I've never felt closer to al Capon. Yeah, I mean, aside from the fact that he's an awful person who committed like really horrible and hainas crimes um and I feel like he had a great taste in restaurants, national parks, and bathtubs. Yeah, he really did too bad. He made awful life decisions. After this short break, will continue to talk about Hot Springs National Park. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. Today we're talking about

Hot Springs National Park trails. When we visited Hot Springs, we were driving across the country from Las Vegas to Durham, North Carolina to visit my sister for Christmas, and Hot Springs was the perfect little detour. Yes it was. I can't think of a better pit stop than a regal bathtub. And the town is just so cute too, that town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. But a really impressive amount of independent restaurants and bakeries in these but like over the

top opulent old school hotels too. Yeah. I mean when you get there, you definitely take the time to stroll down bathhouse roll and the surrounding streets, and then you stop into that mountain valley spring water visitor center and museum. Yeah, that was what like a total surprise. And I think Hot Springs is really the one and only place where a museum dedicated to water is actually awesome. Yeah, and they were so nice there too, and they were very

passionate about the town's water. The building was huge and lofty, with these historical displays information all over the second floor. On the first floor there was a bunch of water themes swag, of course, and all the water you could drink. Yeah,

water themes swag. I love it. I actually bought a spring water like T shirt that I'm obsessed with, and I wear it a lot and I get a lot of compliments on the people pointed out the love that I really love that shirt, although sometimes the backfires and someone recently thought it was they mistook the water and they thought I was wearing a smearnof vodka shirt and I'm like, no, no, no, debsoinitely not. But I so

love it. And while we're at this place, we also stocked up on a variety pack of flavored spring water, which might have been a mistake in our part, because I feel like the sparkling water here set such an impossibly high bar for all other sparkling waters and now I'm obsessed and forever ruined on sparkling water. Yeah, but you tend to get obsessed with things pretty quickly, That's true. I tend to go all in right away. And there's

not a lot of middle ground there. I mean, they're obsessed to like an unhealthy degree immediately or completely disinterested, and this water was clearly the former. I'm all in with the Hot Springs water. Are we done fangirling over this water here? I mean? Another place we have to stroll is to the brick walkway behind the bathhouse. It's yeah, it's this very nice flat trail, if you can call

it trail. It's mostly just like a glorified large sidewalk, and it slopes up along the base of Hot Springs Mountain behind on the rear side of bathhouse row. So once you're up there, you have this nice raised vista of down on Hot Springs, and you can also see more of these steaming fountains along the way. It's all really really pretty. Yeah. Another nice thing about the Hot Springs here is that they don't actually have um that

bad sulfur smell like the ones that yellow don't. Yeah right, these are just so like pure and clean, no bad smells at all, just pure goodness, like lovely experience altogether. And there's plenty of things to explore here too. I mean, you visit another time on your own and did some hiking to the surprise of no one. Yeah, of course,

classic me. I spent today here by myself as well, on another like solo trip, and that's when I got to hike to the top of Hot Springs Mountain, which is really more like a giant hill than a mountain, to be honest. It's not huge, not very strenuous. They gets steep at some parts, but it's really not a long hike, and once you're up there, the valley views are really nice and so green, just like rolling lush green forests, but like a little bit of steaming, smoky

vibes happening. I'm not sure. I think a lot of us from the Hot Springs and also just like foggy and misty, it's all very um it's beautiful, and it's really quite a site and very achievable. You can johned up there and just like an hour. Yeah, you know. And when the Hot Springs actually got upgraded to a National park status, protected land was increased, you know, to include places like the Hot Springs Mountain, Sugar Loaf Mountain,

North Mountain and West Mountain. Yes, that's true. And you know what goes well with hiking beer food, Now that we're finally ready to talk about the beer at Hot Springs, something that I feel really sets this place part more than any other National park. Yeah. Absolutely. I just think it's like the coolest thing ever that one of the bathhouses on Bathouse Road is now a brewery, which is

called fittingly Superior Bathhouse. Nice little homage. It's the only brewery within a National Park and the only brewery on Earth making beer with thermal spring water like this, and since the water is so healthy, it's basically good for you. Yeah right, or at least better than your typical I pas or PBRs. Anyway, this beer you can feel good about, and it even tastes delicious. It tastes very very good.

And they do a great job. And they have this lengthy, impressive list of beers on draft in a wide array of styles and seeing seasonal variations like they have sours, they have brewed I p a s, won't, real stouts, Irish reds, even something like a honey Basil Calsh beer. They really run the gamut. It's a lot. It's really so good, and it's a cool beer to drink, and such a beautiful environment like this um and it's in one of those historical buildings that we're talking about with

such rich architecture, I know. And the food is great here too. They have this elevated gastro pub vibe going on, which makes sense and totally fits. So they have things like giant pretzels and bronze ruben sandwiches and our favorite thing ever, blistered shoshido peppers. Whenever I see like seshida peppers, I just have to have them. Yeah, I know, they're so satisfying with like the perfect amount of heat, unless you get one of those super spicy ones. Those ones

are a little too much. I know, I know that's always, but it's like the fun part. Like one from what we're told, one in every ten shido peppers is like scorchingly spicy allegedly, so it's like a little bit of a little bit of risk, which I like. I like risk with my app pezzers. Before I was actually like drinking this beer, I already felt high from that bath that we had it and we were I mean, you just you feel like you're on cloud nine, just all

the like you're just released. I don't know what's with that water, but once it's on the outside of you, and then it goes on the inside of you and just feel relaxed. Yeah, we basically floated along Bathhouse Row after that because we also have like this little cucumber water that they give us too, so we're like, that's right, yeah, rolling in it u it. Now in terms of like our v accessibility, we didn't camp here or stay here.

We were just passing through. But even though this whole area is technically a small city, it was very doable. I had to sirk around town a couple of times, but we were able to find parking st right near Bathous Row and it all worked out really easily. I actually parked right in front of that the Spring Mountains water. Yeah, that's how we found it because we didn't know that existed. We didn't look that up or anything, but we were parked right in front of the main doors. So we're like, oh,

this is here, let's go into the water museum. And I'm really glad we did. Yeah, me too. Now, also Hot Springs. This clearly it's in the kind of park where you're likely to see a ton of wildlife because it's much more urban than most. What you mostly see is like families and beer drinkers and maybe some want

to be gangsters. Yeah, it's perfect for beat people watching. Um. But it should be noted though that there are plenty of camp rounds and RV parks in and around Hot Springs, so for future reference, this would be a great place to camp and spend more time. Totally. Yeah. So now after this short break, we're going to talk about our favorite parts of Hot Springs National Park. My favorite. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Land yet and we are wrapping up our Hot Springs National Park

episode talking about our favorite things at the park. So do you want to go first? You want to talk about what your favorite part of Hot Springs was? Do you want to talk about what your favorite part is? Sure? I think I'm ready. My favorite part of Hot Springs. I think it's probably superior bathhouse, the brewery. Um. Yeah, it's just like the coolest thing ever. I've done it twice, both times have been to Hot Springs. It's the thing

I've returned to. I just think it's the most unique thing for in every aspect the fact, that's the only brewer with International Park, the only brewery in the world making beer like this with thermal spring water. And it's just really like icing on the cake that the beer tastes really good, because like all those aspects like, oh this is really cool, unique, but does it taste good? And you're like maybe a little hustan at first, but

they do really good, cool and clean menu. You know, it's not over the top, and you know they have a lot of hurdles to go over because they're using that water source there in the like historical building, so like they have to be very careful and what they do and and what they've been able to overcome to

make that food and those beers is truly amazing. Yeah, and we have pretty high beer standards to like we I mean not only coming from Chicago where there's so many breweries and amazing, amazing beer, so we were accommended to that kind of but also like in our travels to various cities and states, like we go to a lot of breweries and have our favorite things, and this place definitely holds its own like it's worthwhile. It's a beer destination in and of itself. I think hot Springs.

So it's actually kind of funny. On that like trip from Las Vegas to North Carolina, we had two beer stops and we brought two different types of beer for the holidays. Yes, this is like a weird beer theme broachap for us, I guess. Yeah. We had Brawn Bone Arrow, one of our favorite breweries in the country from Albuquerque, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and yeah, they have some just great, um,

great beers. But we picked up that and then we picked up this beer and we brought it to my sisters and we all enjoyed it together, which was nice, you know, after of course I was having it there right, Yeah, because that's the whole experience too. It's like the beer is delicious, and I would happily drink that anywhere, but it takes it to a whole another level by drinking it at Superior Bathhouse in these amazing historic confines with

great service here. They're very friendly, very accommodating, and happy to provide sam balls and tastes of the various beers because there's a lot. There's like twelve or thirteen on taps, so you want to kind of sample things and like see what they have. Yeah, I would say my favorite

thing was definitely the bathhouse itself. Going into that and coming out like it was just like I said earlier, cloud nine, I was on cloud nine and I left that, I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day umbly even the next day, like to be honest, I mean, I was so happy. I was relaxed. I

was relieved. And I can definitely see where like the Native American indigenous people they came and use those waters for healing, because the way you feel when you get out of them, um, So that that was truly a beautiful it was. Yeah. Yeah, and that room. I think we should also talk about that room a lott about our private bathroom because like the room itself is clearly very old and historic, has this kind of well worn flora tile and pile's wall hole on the walls, but

the bath itself is very modern. The tub seemed very modern, like, um, a very sleek, clean two person tub with these jets that are like very very precisely manufactured to just scent, temperatures and everything. It's very comfortable. So it was really nice. And then I think we also had like this little bell, like an actual bell, right in case we needed service or like more bath salt or something, so you could ring ring this little actual bell. I feel so uncomfortable

dringing that bell. I feel like I'm like, no, that's not I know. I felt like I was calling for like a servant or something, and that's just not not for me. We didn't we didn't use the bell. No, no, no, but I was tempted. Yeah. So that was a good time and I'm so thankful we did it, and a great level like road trip stop. For the three things I would bring, I would definitely bring an appetite and taste for beer, good good beer. That would be one thing, um,

I guess I would bring you. And I would definitely bring, like I was gonna say, a bathrow but you know what, they have enough to provide them for you. Yeah, that's true. Um. The things that I would bring, I guess would be maybe a bathing suit. I don't know if it's well, yeah, especially if you're gonna be taking a communal bath, like come on, you're going to need that. It can't be naked, Um,

so bring that. I would also suggest bringing I mean again, appetite related thing because I feel like this is such a wonderful food destination, food and bever destination. There's a lot of it, and that's one of the benefits that's come from from being a little bit of an urban park. I got a good one for your third one. What you need to bring a thirst for knowledge because there's

so much history there. Yeah. True, So I guess I have fourign you have to today to bring an actual thirst, like a literal thirst, and then a thirst for no edge, and then drink it all in because there's a lot of everything here and it's all great, all great. So let's talk about our dream trip to Hot Springs. Okay, yes, So personally, I'd like more pampering and there's plenty of that to go around here. I want more beer, also,

plenty of that to go around. I would also like to stay at one of those decadent, vintage looking hotels that we saw, because there's a few of those that like they've been around for quite a while, like the Hotel Hot Springs. Yeah, especially that one or the Park Hotel. They just look like they've been there since the al Capone era. And maybe he's stay there, I don't know, maybe he slept in the same room and there's also this beautiful chic, beautique property which I'm pretty sure it's

much newer but looks just as gorgeous. It's called the Waters, and that name is the coolest thing ever, just so perfect. Yeah, that polace looked really awesome, and that was right downtown on bath Houts Row. It couldn't be more convenient, and it has the most beautiful, full high end restaurant called The Avenue with food like grilled watermelon salad and cornmeal fried oorysters and pimento cheese with Jimmy churry. Cannot beat

that so good. So I think I actually wrote a story at one point calling Hot Springs like the ultimate national power for foodies, because we talked about this after there. We didn't like eat in no places, but it's immediately apparent that like this is definitely a dining destination, and after visiting so many national parks, I definitely stand by that.

I think it'd be fun to come here really just like bar hop and restaurant hop around Hot Springs, because there's so many places that we saw or that I've researched and read about that I'm dying to go to, especially the one that I mainly want to go to is this place called the Ohio Club, and it's the oldest bar in Arkansas with lots of whiskeys and live music, both of which we love. And it used to have gambling too, which is cool. Not anymore, but you know,

I like the backstory. And then naturally, unsurprisingly, al Capone loved it here. Like you said, the man has good taste. You've been listening to the Parklandia Podcast, a show about national parks by iHeart Radio, created by Matt Kerouac, Brad Carouac, and Christopher hassiotis produced and edited by Mike John's executive produced by Christopher hassiotas special thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters, and the rest of the Parklandia crew and Hey listeners.

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