Save the Date: March 4th. Join in celebrating 100 years as Hot Springs National Park. Experience the beauty, the history and the thermal waters.
Join Hot Springs National Park on March 4th to celebrate the park’s official 100th birthday! On this day, 100 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress changed the name of Hot Springs Reservation to Hot Springs National Park, forever changing the course of the park’s history.
A 100th anniversary is a special time for everyone. It’s not just a celebration, but also a reflection of everyone that has been here and everything that has transpired in the last 100 years to bring the park and the community to this point. It’s also an opportunity to dream about the future and imagine what the next 100 years will look like.
Hot Springs National Park has a long and complex history that is as intertwined with the human spirit as it is with the unique factors that create our thermal springs. The land has been federally protected since 1832, but starting in 1921, when the land was made an official national park, the mission grew and Hot Springs joined the growing list of parks that preserve and protect the places and stories of the nation.
For Hot Springs National Park, the contribution has always been health, healing, refuge, and access to mineral-rich thermal spring water. In the last 100 years the park has grown in size. Some of the Bathhouses have found new uses. People’s reasons for visiting have evolved, and the city around the park has transformed. The national park has experienced wars, fires, and floods. Many things have changed and yet, at the heart of it all, the water continues to flow. The longevity, beauty, and value of the springs have weathered countless challenges and they continue to offer themselves up as a sanctuary to all who would seek to know them — today, and for the next 100 years.
Hot Springs National Park and the City of Hot Springs have grown together over the last century. The anniversary is a time to celebrate YOUR national park. Hot Springs National Park hopes you’ll join them on March 4th around lunch time for cupcakes, a centennial-themed photo booth, and a special virtual reflection on the park through the eyes of the park historian and superintendent.
Hot Springs National Park couldn’t have accomplished all that it has in the last century without you, so raise a glass of thermal water and let’s march forth together into the next 100 years and beyond!
For more information about Hot Springs National Park’s Centennial, please visit www.nps.gov/hosp/getinvolved/centennial.htm.
