Hot Springs Creek

Flowing beneath the busiest street in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County), Hot Springs Creek is a waterway that few people realize exists just below their feet. Hidden under Central Avenue, it is no longer visible around Bathhouse Row, since most of the creek is covered by a stone arch tunnel that was constructed in the nineteenth century. However, the creek’s water can be seen in other areas of town such as Whittington Park. It is paralleled by the popular Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail, a paved multi-use trail that runs about four miles and connects the creek to Lake Hamilton a few miles south of the city.

Hot Springs Creek was originally a natural stream that ran in the valley between West Mountain and Sugarloaf Mountain, working its way through what is today Central Avenue. Capturing runoff from the mountains and the thermal springs, the creek’s temperature was increased by the hot water. It was an important factor in the development of the town as a health resort until the creek itself became a health hazard.

In the town’s early days, people came to bathe in the warm creek water, seeking its healing properties. When enclosed bathhouses were constructed on the east side of Hot Springs Creek where most of the town’s thermal springs emerge, crude bridges were built over the creek for people to access the bathhouses from its west side. However, before long, the creek essentially became an open sewer, turned into a receptacle for used water from the bathhouses as well as sewage from businesses and hotels.

In 1832, in order to protect its thermal waters, Hot Springs became the country’s first federal reservation. In the 1880s, under the U.S. government, construction began on a stone arch tunnel that would cover Hot Springs Creek in front of Bathhouse Row in order to manage both sewage and foot traffic. The construction of a covered space between the two mountains allowed the development of Central Avenue as a business district that could handle both pedestrians and automobiles.

The first portion of the arch was built in 1884 in front of Bathhouse Row so that visitors could avoid having to walk over narrow bridges that were built across the creek. The twelve-foot-tall tunnel across from the bathhouses was 3,500 feet long and was fourteen feet wide. Its construction was overseen by the Department of the Interior as one of the first major federal infrastructure projects at what was then called Hot Springs Reservation (now Hot Springs National Park). The covered arch blocked the creek from sources of contamination as well as widened the usable streetscape on today’s Central Avenue. According to the City of Hot Springs, the original arch in front of the bathhouses cost the federal government $136,745. After landscaping it by adding soil on top, sidewalks and a roadway could be built. The present-day bathhouses were built on top of the ground created by the Hot Springs Creek Arch. Later additions to the tunnel ran north toward Whittington Avenue and Park Avenue, and south on Broadway Street past today’s Transportation Depot.

The original portion of the tunnel was built with large granite stones and novaculite, with walls thirty inches thick and about eight feet tall in most of the tunnel. Additions were built using random stone, bricks, and a few poured concrete walls. As the tunnel travels farther along Central Avenue, it becomes smaller until it is little more than a pipeline.

In most situations, the creek running beneath the tunnel protects downtown Hot Springs from flooding by providing a place for rainwater to converge. However, it was only designed to handle stormwater runoff from average rainfall, not the kind of deluge that can develop into what are known as ten-year flood events. The arch tunnel is too small to accommodate the volume of water in that type of major storm. In those circumstances, it cannot control Hot Springs Creek downtown.

Several floods through the years have caused water to surge down modern-day Central Avenue. Generally cited as the most severe, the flood of 1923 saw more than ten inches of rain fall on Hot Springs in twenty-four hours. An average of five feet of water covered Central Avenue at that time, smashing into storefronts and sweeping away automobiles. Also highly destructive, the flood of 1990 caused substantial damage to the downtown historic district and the Arlington Hotel. Other notable floods in downtown Hot Springs included those in 1920, 1927, 1956, 1963, 1984, and 2008.

Periodically, there have been proposals to deepen the creek under the arch. However, such projects have not been pursued due to concerns over possible disturbances to the thermal springs and their delicate ecosystem. The Hot Springs Creek tunnel is monitored by the Stormwater Division of the City of Hot Springs, which oversees structural maintenance as needed and as funds become available. In 2014, the city received a federal grant of almost $500,000 for repairs and maintenance to the creek arch.

Along with being visible at Whittington Park, which lies about a mile northwest of Bathhouse Row, Hot Springs Creek can also be seen along the Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail. This 4.2-mile-long city park and trail runs south from downtown Hot Springs to the Jean White Wallace Wetlands Trailhead, a waterway connecting with Lake Hamilton.

Part of the lore associated with the colorful history of Hot Springs suggests that mobsters who visited the city, such as Al Capone, used the Hot Springs Creek tunnel to travel unseen between the Arlington Hotel, where they stayed, and gambling halls on Central Avenue, where they played. However, local historians point out that the tunnel is damp, dark, and dangerous. Well-dressed mobsters would hardly have wanted to risk their custom-made shoes or encounter the snakes that lived down there. In any case, it would have been unnecessary to hide in the tunnel since gangland visitors walked freely around town. As long as they were well-behaved, spent freely, and were generous tippers, they were generally tolerated by law enforcement and treated as celebrities by locals. Nor is there evidence that there was a bowling alley and/or buried gold in the tunnel. It is now against the law to enter the Hot Springs Creek tunnel without permission.

For additional information:
Alexander, Mattie. “Mysterious Structure Beneath Historic Downtown Hot Springs.” OBU Signal, April 6, 2017. https://www.obusignal.com/mysterious-structure-beneath-historic-downtown-hot-springs/ (accessed May 29, 2026).

“The Flood of 1990, Hot Springs National Park.” National Park Service. https://npshistory.com/publications/hosp/brochures/flood-1990.pdf (accessed May 29, 2026).

“Hot Springs Creek, Hot Springs National Park.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/places/hot-springs-creek.htm (accessed May 29, 2026).

“Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail.” Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas. https://www.hotsprings.org/places/activities/hot-springs-creek-greenway-trail/ (accessed May 29, 2026).

“Hot Springs Creek Topo Map in Garland County AR.” TopoZone. https://www.topozone.com/arkansas/garland-ar/stream/hot-springs-creek-7/ (accessed May 29, 2026).

“Hot Springs Creek Tunnel.” City of Hot Springs. https://www.hotspringsar.gov/436/Hot-Springs-Creek-Tunnel (accessed May 29, 2026).

Monteverdi, Laura. “Hidden Hot Springs: A Tunnel of Secrets.” KTHV-11, May 29, 2015. https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/hot-springs/hidden-hot-springs-a-tunnel-of-secrets/91-189209972 (accessed May 29, 2026).

Nancy Hendricks
Garland County Historical Society