WATCH | Fordyce to partially close for exhibit renovation

Exhibits on the second floor of the Fordyce Bath House will be removed starting Jan. 17, leading the National Park Service to close the facility for around five weeks to install new interactive exhibits. The current exhibits have been on display since 1989. - Photo by Donald Cross of The Sentinel-Record
Exhibits on the second floor of the Fordyce Bath House will be removed starting Jan. 17, leading the National Park Service to close the facility for around five weeks to install new interactive exhibits. The current exhibits have been on display since 1989. - Photo by Donald Cross of The Sentinel-Record


Hot Springs National Park is updating its more than 30-year-old exhibits at the Fordyce Bath House, which will be partially closed over the next month while new, up-to-date exhibits are installed.

The exhibits at the Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center and Museum will be closed from Jan. 17 through mid-February, as the new exhibits are installed on the first and second floors of the bath house. The exhibits have been in place since the facility reopened as the park's visitor center in 1989.

While the exhibit areas will be closed to the public during the installation, the visitor center lobby will remain open.

"All of these exhibits were first installed in 1989, and in the last over 30 years we've really learned a lot about the thermal water system," Ashley Waymouth, chief of interpretation and visitor services for Hot Springs National Park, said Friday.

"We've learned a lot about the recharge zone and how it all works, and so we're excited to replace and update all these exhibits with modern scientific information with more relevancy to the year 2023," she said.

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"Just the lobby will be open, and everything else in the building will be closed. So our basement will be closed, sort of the side hallways that take you into the men's and women's bath hall will also be closed as will the second and third floors."

The updates to the exhibits have been in process for several years, Waymouth said.

"This is a project we've been working on for several years, but there are a lot of steps to getting new exhibits," she said.

"We have to design them, we have to put them out to bid, we have to work with contractors, and we have to make sure everything's just right. Then we have to get them installed. So this has been a many years long process, and so we're excited to see it coming to fruition."

Waymouth said the new exhibits will be more interactive than the current exhibits.

"All of these free-standing exhibit cases will be replaced with exhibit panels that will be against the wall and that will have more interactive features," she said. "So you can turn knobs and see how the water is distributed throughout the national park. You can see cross-sections of geologic rock layers.

"We're pulling artifacts from our museum collection, so you'll be able to see artifacts from different bath houses. ... With these exhibits we're telling a better story about the park, and we're helping people to learn and understand more deeply about what geologic processes are at play here, how these bath houses were able to operate for so long, and what the stories of some of the people who worked in the bath houses are."

The tactile model of Bathhouse Row is also being updated and expanded to include more of the national park.

"It'll be more inclusive," she said. "Right now the tactile model that we have only focuses on Bathhouse Row and a little bit of Hot Springs Mountain, and the one that we're getting shows more comprehensively the entire park. So you'll see West Mountain, Hot Springs and North Mountain, that ridgeline, and Bathhouse Row, as well."

Park Superintendent Laura Miller said the exhibits will allow for more up-to-date information in an interactive way.

"We are excited about the new exhibits," she said. "We have learned so much more about how the thermal water system functions over the past 30 years, and we know visitors will love the more engaging and interactive features."

The new exhibits are being funded by fees collected from the park service, a news release said.

"The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act allows the NPS to collect and retain revenue and requires that fee revenue be used to enhance the visitor experience," it said. "At least 80% of the money stays in the park where it is collected, and the other 20% is used to benefit parks that do not collect fees."

There will be a grand reopening to celebrate the new exhibits when the Fordyce Bathhouse reopens in February.

"We're hoping it'll take no more than five weeks," Waymouth said. "Of course, things come up that we can't predict, that we don't foresee, but we expect to be open by mid to late February."

She said they hope to have "a big grand reopening ceremony" to welcome people back in to see the exhibits, to see the changes that have been made, and "take in all of the new information that we've put together."

  photo  Hot Springs National Park Chief of Interpretation and Visitor Services Ashley Waymouth, left, talks with Park Interpreter Lissa Allen at the front desk of the Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center. - Photo by Donald Cross of The Sentinel-Record
 
 


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