Season 22, Day 15 - "Spa Town Rundown"
It's Hot week, and today's quiz is inspired by Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Hi everyone! A quick mea culpa: in the John C. Breckinridge write-up last week, I said “Andrew Jackson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in 1868” — of course I meant Andrew Johnson, sorry about that!
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs is a city in Arkansas named for its natural hot springs (a.k.a. hydrothermal springs or geothermal springs). Set aside as a federal reservation in 1832 to protect its 47 hot springs, it soon developed into a successful spa town. In 1921, the area was made into a national park, where eight early 20th century bathhouses are preserved along Bathhouse Row. Hot Springs has been called the “Baden-Baden of America” (referring to a German spa town) and “The American Spa.” Every day, about a million US gallons of water at an average temperature of 143 °F (62 °C) flow from the springs. Due to the natural sterile quality of the springs’ water as it exits the ground, NASA has used it to store moon rocks. Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto (the first European to see the springs) was led there in 1541 by local Native Americans, who’d been enjoying the healing properties of the thermal springs for many years. Hot Springs is also considered the “birthplace” of spring training baseball, first hosting the Chicago White Stockings in 1886 (many other major league and Negro league teams followed). In an exhibition game in Hot Springs in 1918, pitcher Babe Ruth was a last minute replacement at first base and hit two long home runs, a moment that’s said to have started his transition from pitcher to hitter. Bill Clinton grew up in Hot Springs, and actor Billy Bob Thornton was born there.