Mission :

The Hot Springs Board of Directors is a cooperative group of elected leaders accountable and responsible to serve all the citizens of the City of Hot Springs. The Board is charged with:

- Making policy decisions on city operations and directing the City Manager in implementing the policies;
- Developing long-range plans for city growth and prosperity;
- Improving and maintaining the quality of life;
- Serving as role models for integrity in government;
- Valuing and nurturing diversity of people and viewpoints; and cooperating with county, state and national governments.

History :

Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas is the only American city nestled within a national park. That is because the United States government recognized its uniqueness and gave it protected status in 1832 as the first Federal Reservation. It became a National Park in 1921, and the City of Hot Springs was officially incorporated in 1876.

Hot Springs' legacy springs from the thermal waters that are its namesake. There are 47 hot springs which, for thousands of years, have issued forth from the southwestern slope of Hot Springs Mountain at a temperature of 143o F and a rate of nearly a million gallons a day. The waters, having traveled through many layers of filtering rock on their way to the earth's surface, have been found to be nearly 100% pure.

Traveling back in time to the year 1541, when the Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto arrived in Hot Springs and drank the thermal waters, he discovered what the native American Indians had experienced as long as 10,000 years ago. This Valley of the Vapors, nestled in the Ouachita Mountains, was a place of peace where various tribes would put aside their differences and gather to enjoy the mysterious springs. Since then, visitors have come for healing, rejuvenation, and recreation.

World-famous Bathhouse Row, consisting of eight architecturally unique, turn-of-the-century bathhouses in the heart of the downtown historic and arts district, is supervised by the National Park Service. One of the bathhouses, the Fordyce, currently operates as a beautifully restored museum where visitors can learn more about the colorful history which shapes Hot Springs to this day.