In the early 1890s, Robert Stevens, the career United States Army officer in charge, planned overall improvements of the Hot Springs Reservation. Over a five-year period he planned and oversaw construction of a suite of enhancements, including the formal entrance and balustrade, all walkways and roads on Hot Springs Mountain, the park-like front lawns and shady Magnolia Promenade that shaped what we know today as "Bathhouse Row," and Whittington Lake Park in the valley between West Mountain and Sugarloaf Mountain.

In order to fulfill his vision, Stevens asked that Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park, New York and of Niagara Falls and Yellowstone Park, be employed to design Hot Springs Reservation improvements. However, by 1893, the failure in performance by Olmsted & Company forced an exasperated Robert Stevens to terminate the tortured business relationship.  The only element of their plan Stevens implemented were the decorative eagle columns at the main entrance of the park:

“The front of the entire bath house park on Central and Reserve avenues, a distance of 1,613 feet, was curbed with sawed Alabama limestone, and along the same front was extended a concrete walk 14 feet wide, leaving a lawn border 9 feet wide between its outer edge and the curbing.  By this construction the walk forms a promenade with rows of shade trees on each side… A balustrade and successive masonry stairways are to lead up the mountain side from the entrance columns to connect again with the main branch of the drive.”

In 1933, grading began on the Grand Promenade behind Bathhouse Row. Both the Civil Conservation Corps and the Civil Works Administration, worked on excavation for the formal Promenade behind Bathhouse Row.Both the Imperial Bathhouse and the Superintendent’s residence on Fountain Street were razed in 1937 to make way for the Grand Promenade entrance on Reserve Street. The first gravel was laid in 1938 for the walkway; however, the first brickwork was not added until 1941. The Grand Promenade was not finished until 1958. In April 1982, a special ceremony above the formal entrance on the Grand Promenade took place to announce that the Grand Promenade was listed as a national recreation trail.

Credits and Sources:

“Robert R. Stevens.” National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/hosp/learn/historyculture/rrstevens.htm (accessed June 16, 2015).

Cockrell, Ron. “The Hot Springs of Arkansas—America’s First National Park: Administrative History of Hot Springs National Park.” National Park Service. Accessed June 15, 2015.

Shugart, Sharon. “The Hot Springs of Arkansas Through The Years: A Chronology Of Events -Excerpts-.” Department of the Interior, 2004. http://www.nps.gov/hosp/learn/historyculture/upload/chronology.web.pdf. (accessed June 15, 2015).

Quinn Evans Architects, Mundus Bishop Design, and Woolpert, Inc. Hot Springs National Park, Cultural Landscape Report and Environmental Assessment. National Park Service, 2010.