Dates visited: March 23 - 28, 2022
By Marty
We found Little Rock to be interesting and entertaining, contrary to what the long time Arkansan that we chatted with in Eureka Springs disdainfully asked: "Why are you going to Little Rock?"
Heck, country music icon Reba McEntire even wrote a song about Little Rock...
If you did not know that Arkansas' official nickname is "The Natural State" you wouldn't be alone...
The first of many bridge pictures...
Little Rock is situated on the south side of the Arkansas River. On the opposite side is North Little Rock, a separate city. We enjoyed our six night stay in the Downtown Riverside RV Park. On the right side of this photo you can see The Beast, from which we had a windshield view of the Little Rock skyline and several of the six bridges that span the Arkansas River in Little Rock.
The closest bridge in this photo is Interstate 30. The cranes are there because a second bridge is under construction that will double the capacity of I-30. It was interesting to watch the cranes at work during our stay. They are mounted on barges that were moved around as needed by a tugboat so that construction materials could be hoisted up to the bridge.
Dusk view from the edge of our RV park. The I-30 bridge is in the foreground. The second bridge (it looks like a railroad trestle) is the Junction Bridge and beyond it (the two arches) is the Broadway Bridge.
You may recall that we recently spent time along the Arkansas River in Tulsa, OK and, before that, in Wichita, KS. Also last May, while visiting Salida, CO we rafted the Arkansas River as it tumbled out of the Rocky Mountains. The Arkansas River is the sixth longest river in the US (and 45th longest in the world!) and the second longest tributary of the Mississippi River. Fun fact: The Mississippi River is NOT the longest river in the US! It's tributary, the Missouri River, is actually 39 miles longer than the Mississippi.
How is Arkansas pronounced? "arkansaw" of course. Well, that's how people from 49 of our 50 states pronounce that word. In Kansas the Arkansas River is pronounced "arkansas". That's right, it's "sas" not "saw". You can't blame them. After all they live in "Kansas" not "Kansaw".
The Junction Bridge is lit at night with ever changing colors.
This edifice is familiar to most of us because of the Little Rock Nine and the impactful role they played in the Civil Rights movement. Little Rock Central High School is still an active high school. Our visit coincided with Spring Break so there was nary a student to be seen.
From History.com:
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine Black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the Black students’ entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school. It drew national attention to the civil rights movement.
This painting is in the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site visitor center. The painting, by artist George Hunt, hung in the Clinton White House for five years. A postage stamp with this image was issued in 2005.
This is Junction Bridge (the one with the colored lights) from the Little Rock side. Built in 1884 as a railroad bridge it was rebuilt for vehicle use in 1970 and converted to pedestrian and cyclists use only in 2007. The lift span is permanently fixed in the up position. There are stairs and elevators on each side of that section.
Broadway Bridge again
The River Market District (above and below). There wasn't much to it, honestly.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
A reproduction of the White House Cabinet Room
There was a LOT to see and read in the library. Janell made a valiant effort!
This is as close as we'll ever come to dinner at The White House
This is bridge number five. But who's counting? It is the Clinton Presidential Park bridge. This photo is taken from the grounds of the Clinton Library looking north. The Beast and our RV park are visible (well, barely) just under the lift span section of the bridge. This bridge was built in 1889 and known as the Rock Island Railroad Bridge. It was converted into a ramped pedestrian pathway and reopened in 2011.
Little Rock is the only city in the country with four pedestrian bridges over a navigable body of water.
Yes, Virginia there is a brewery in Little Rock.
We enjoyed an evening at the "Joint" where we saw a production of "I love you but you're sitting on my cat."
These three actors played 8-10 characters in total, quickly donning a wig or a hat offstage to return as a different character. It was very amusing!
Couldn't resist taking, and showing to you, this one as we walked from The Joint back to our RV park.
The Simmons Bank Arena hosted concerts on four of the nights that we were in town. The arena was only a half mile walk from our RV park. We enjoyed the Alabama concert at the venue. Alabama was a BIG deal in the 80's, especially if you lived in the south, as did I in Houston at that time. Alabama had 21 straight #1 singles and have sold over 75 million albums.
A snippet from our concert for you. Randy Owen still sounds good:
On our last day we visited a torture chamber...
Read the following about the park from the National Park Service website (and, believe it or not, adapted for brevity!)
The area now known as "Hot Springs National Park" first became United States territory in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The first permanent settlers to reach the Hot Springs area in 1807 were quick to realize the springs' potential as a health resort. By the 1830s, log cabins and a store had been built to meet the needs (albeit in a rudimentary way) of visitors to the springs.
To protect this unique national resource and preserve it for the use of the public, the Arkansas Territorial Legislature had requested in 1820 that the springs and adjoining mountains be set aside as a federal reservation (not to be confused with the Indian reservations being established around the same time). On April 20, 1832, President Andrew Jackson signed legislation creating the reservation. This makes Hot Springs National Park the oldest national park among current NPS parks, predating Yellowstone National Park by forty years. Unfortunately, Congress failed to pass any legislation for administering the site. As a result, no controls were exerted in the area, and people continued to settle there, building businesses around and over the springs.
In 1878 a devastating fire swept up the valley, destroying all but a few bathouses and other structures. The structures were in general rough,
utilitarian, and in poor repair. Many townspeople considered the great
fire of 1878 to be more a blessing than a tragedy, since it cleared the
way for new construction that was more substantial and attractive.
In the short period after the fire, the government established stringent standards for bathhouse construction, and the area rapidly changed from a rough frontier town to an elegant spa city.
The new Victorian
bathhouses built between 1880 and 1888 were larger and more luxurious
than could have been dreamed of ten years earlier. The haphazardly
placed wooden troughs carrying the thermal water down the mountainside
were replaced with underground pipes. Roads and paths were improved for
the convenience of visitors who wished to enjoy the scenery.
Between 1912 and 1923 the wooden Victorian bathhouses built in the
1880s were gradually replaced with fire-resistant brick and stucco
bathhouses, several of which featured marble walls, billiard rooms,
gymnasiums, and stained glass windows. The final metamorphosis of
Bathhouse Row was completed when the Lamar Bathhouse opened its doors
for business in 1923. The bathhouses, all of which are still standing
today, ushered in a new age of spa luxury.
By the 1960s the bathing industry in the park and in the city had
declined considerably. The primary cause was the rapid development of antibiotics and other medicines that quickly eased or cured the same diseases that bathhouses treated with a three week course of hydrotherapy.
On Bathhouse Row, the eight grand bathhouses that had been thriving since their construction in the first three decades of the century suffered from the decline. The elegant Fordyce Bathhouse was the first to close, in 1962, followed by six other Bathhouses over the next 23 years. The Buckstaff Bathhouse is the only one of the eight that has operated continuously since it's construction in 1912.
Bathhouse Row and its environs were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The desire to revitalize Bathhouse Row also led citizens to campaign for adaptive uses of the vacant buildings. The strongest concern was to save the most elegant bathhouse, the Fordyce, which was consequently adapted for use as a visitor center and museum. Today, nearly all the bathhouses have been renovated and adapted for modern use.
The Fordyce Bathhouse, the most elegant of the eight, has been preserved as a museum and visitor center. This is the men's locker room.
Steam cabinets. Not for the claustrophobic.
The Ozark, one of the eight Bathhouses
The Buckstaff - continuously operating as a Bathhouse since 1912
splish splash I was takin' ....
There are a handful of places around Bathhouse Row and elsewhere in the park where you can access the hot spring water, including this fountain in front of the NPS administrative office.
The water emerges from the springs at 142 degrees. This water fell as rain or snow in the nearby Quachita Mountains over 4,000 years ago, around the time the Great Pyramid in Giza was being built!
Observation tower...
...from which you can see the park and city below. Bathhouse row is not visible from the tower as it sits against the base of the mountain.
The Quapaw and other tribes used the hot springs as a peaceful gathering spot as many as 10,000 years ago, calling this area "the valley of the vapors".
