Each person attending the birthday gala will receive this special commemorative coin.
Hot Springs’ 150th birthday gala will be held August 11 in Horner Hall at the Hot Springs Convention Center. Funds generated by the celebration will be given to the Garland County Historical Society.
“Although our city’s history goes back hundreds of years to the time when Indigenous people gathered around the thermal springs in The Valley of the Vapors, the town of Hot Springs was formally incorporated with a formal government, a mayor, aldermen, city ordinances and police and fire departments on August 11, 1876,” Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said in announcing plans for the birthday gala.
“The Birthday Gala will feature a premier cocktail reception, an elegant seated dinner, celebrity guest speakers, live entertainment and a ceremonial cake cutting,” Arrison said. There will be a reception at 6 PM, then dinner at 7 PM.
Purchase of a table for $1,000 for 8, will come with a commemorative coin created especially for the Sesquicentennial for each person attending. Tickets are available at https://www.hotsprings.org/events/hot-springs-150th-birthday-gala/. Cocktail attire is suggested. The Historical Society provided this timeline on the origin of the City:
- As a town, Hot Springs is thought of in two versions/incarnations: the little town that grew up from the early 1800s and burned by the end of the Civil War (1865), and the town that rebuilt after the Civil War. Each one was incorporated.
- Only the second incorporation in 1876 established a town government, with a mayor and aldermen; the first city ordinances were created, and the first police and fire departments were formed.
- April 5, 1876, County Judge J. W. Jordan certified a petition (signed by 467 residents) calling for the city to be incorporated.
- May 22, 1876, I. W. Carhart elected first mayor.
- August 11, 1876, Governor Augustus H. Garland signed a petition declaring Hot Springs a city.
- January 18, 1879, Hot Springs is declared a City of the First Class.
For more information, call Steve Arrison at 501-321-2027.
