50 free Hot Springs National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Hot Springs National Park trivia quiz covers the small Arkansas park that wraps around a spa town, where 143-degree water rises from Hot Springs Mountain and Congress set aside the first federal reservation in 1832, forty years before Yellowstone. Questions cover the geology of the springs (no volcano involved), the eight bathhouses of Bathhouse Row from the palatial Fordyce to the Superior brewery, the bathing regimens of the Gilded Age, the free baths for the poor and the Army and Navy Hospital. The town's colourful history is here too: Hernando de Soto in the Valley of the Vapors, the Quapaw treaty, the 1878 and 1913 fires, Major League Baseball's spring training and Babe Ruth's home run into an alligator farm, the gangsters and gambling of the Prohibition years, and the park's 2010 quarter. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question, so it works for a stroll along the Grand Promenade or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our US National Parks quiz next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hot Springs National Park is in which US state?
Arkansas
It sits in Garland County, wrapped around the city of the same name in the mountains of central Arkansas.
Q 02In which year did Congress set aside the Hot Springs Reservation, the first federal land protected for recreation?
1832
That was four decades before Yellowstone; the reservation formally became a public park in 1880 and a national park in 1921.
Q 03Hot Springs became a national park in which year?
1921
Congress renamed the reservation and later grew it to about 5,839 acres, taking in Hot Springs, North, West and Sugarloaf mountains.
Q 04Until Gateway Arch was redesignated in 2018, Hot Springs held what distinction among national parks?
Smallest by area
At about 5,839 acres it is still tiny, and it takes in parts of downtown, making it one of the most accessible parks.
Q 05Why was Hot Springs the first to receive its own America the Beautiful quarter, in April 2010?
It is the oldest area under federal protection
Its 1832 reservation predates every other unit, though Yellowstone was the first to carry the national park title.
Q 06The springs flow from the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain, part of which range?
Ouachita Mountains
They emerge in a gap between Hot Springs Mountain and West Mountain, in a strip about 1,500 feet long and 400 feet wide.
Q 07What is the average temperature of the water as it emerges from the springs?
143 °F
Since 1950 central cooling towers have brought it down to a safe temperature before it reaches the bathhouses.
Q 08Where does the springs' heat come from?
Rocks warming naturally with depth
The chemistry shows the water never nears magma; it is simply rain that sank thousands of feet, warmed and rose again under artesian pressure.
Q 09Radiocarbon dating shows the spring water fell as rain roughly how long ago?
4,400 years
It seeps down through cracked rock at about a foot a year to depths of 4,500 to 7,500 feet, then rises in about a year along fractures.
Q 10How many thermal springs in the park are presumed to be flowing today?
43
Water from 33 of them is piped to a central reservoir that supplies the bathhouses and public fountains.
Q 11What did Native American tribes call the area when Hernando de Soto arrived in 1541?
Valley of the Vapors
By tradition the tribes laid down their weapons and shared the waters in peace; people had gathered there for over 8,000 years.
Q 12After ceding the springs by treaty in 1818, the Quapaw were removed in the 1830s to where?
Indian Territory
They had already been pushed to a reservation south of the site before the treaty was signed.
Q 13Which president sent William Dunbar and George Hunter to explore the springs in 1804?
Thomas Jefferson
They found one log cabin and a few crude shelters used by people seeking cures; the first permanent settler arrived in 1807.
Q 21The Hale, rebuilt in 1892-93, opened in 2019 as what?
A nine-room hotel
The original 1841 Hale was reputedly the first bathhouse to offer more than just a bath; the building sat empty for years after a failed 1981 arcade.
Q 22What did the Ozark bathhouse reopen as in 2014?
An arts and events center
It closed as a bathhouse in 1977; the Lamar next door became the park gift shop.
Q 23Bathhouse Row was designated what on May 28, 1987?
National Historic Landmark
The landmark district also takes in the walkway on the hill behind the bathhouses and the fountained main entrance.
Q 14How many bathhouses stand along Bathhouse Row?
8
They were independent, competing businesses; the landmark district also includes the promenade behind them and the fountained main entrance.
Q 15Which bathhouse reopened as the park's visitor center in 1989?
Fordyce
It was the grandest and most expensive on the row, and the first to close, in 1962; it reopened as the visitor center in 1989.
Q 16Which two Bathhouse Row buildings were still operating as bathhouses in 2015?
Buckstaff and Quapaw
The Buckstaff has run continuously since 1912; the Quapaw closed in 1984 and reopened as a spa in 2008.
Q 17The row's most elaborate bathhouse cost roughly how much to build and furnish in 1914-15?
About $213,000
Its builder, who credited the waters with saving his life after a Civil War injury, waited to see the Maurice go up so he could beat it.
Q 18Besides baths, the row's grandest bathhouse offered its patrons which recreational facilities?
Bowling lanes and a billiard room
It also had a gymnasium, a roof garden, a museum of prehistoric relics and staterooms for reading and conversation.
Q 19The Superior, the northernmost bathhouse, reopened in 2012 as what?
A brewery and restaurant
From 2012 it brewed beer with hot spring water; it was completed in 1916 on the site of an 1880s Victorian bathhouse.
Q 20The Quapaw bathhouse, built in 1922, is topped by what distinctive feature?
A dome of coloured tiles
It is in Spanish Colonial Revival style with a small copper cupola; it was the moderately priced house, with no beauty parlours or extras.
Q 24The brick-paved walkway on the hillside behind the bathhouses is called what?
Grand Promenade
Begun in the 1930s and finally finished in the early 1960s, it runs between Reserve Avenue and Fountain Street.
Q 25What did federal engineers do to Hot Springs Creek after taking direct control in 1877?
Covered it with stone arches under a street
Squatters were evicted, rubbish cleared and a central plumbing system built by about 1890; Central Avenue runs above the buried creek.
Q 26Congress opened a free bathhouse for the poor at Hot Springs in which year?
1878
About 100,000 free baths a year were given; applicants swore an oath of poverty, and the free house finally closed in 1957.
Q 27Under the 1930s bathhouse rules, a shower could last no more than how long?
90 seconds
Tub baths were capped at 20 minutes, and the next decade cut showers to a single minute.
Q 28In 1929 a full course of 21 baths cost roughly how much?
$16 to $24
Single baths ran $1 to $1.40; the water was the same everywhere, only the trimmings differed.
Q 29Which federal department ran the Army and Navy General Hospital behind Bathhouse Row?
War Department
The 1933 building later served as a state rehabilitation center and career school until 2019, after which it sat empty.
Q 30Which Chicago gangster famously favoured the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs?
Al Capone
Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello and Bugs Moran also visited a town known for speakeasies, illegal casinos and horse racing at Oaklawn.