2010 Hot Springs America the Beautiful Quarter

Design Proposals for Hot Springs America the Beautiful Quarter

The 2010 Hot Springs America the Beautiful Quarter will be the first release of the new program featuring National Parks and National Sites. The design will feature Hot Springs National Park. The area was first established as a reservation in 1832, and became a National Park later in 1921. The quarter will be released early in 2010, with the exact date still unknown.

Although the final design for the Arkansas America the Beautiful Quarter has not yet been selected, the design candidates feature scenes from Hot Springs National Park. Candidates include a fountain and ornate door of one of the buildings, the fountain by itself, and a view encompassing one of the buildings and the park. The designs will be reviewed by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee and Commission of Fine Arts, before the final selection is made by the Secretary of the Treasury.

The head of the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, sees the Hot Springs Quarter as a marketing tool for the city. He was quoted as saying, “The only thing that would make it better would be if we could put our Web site on the quarter.”

About Hot Springs National Park

Even before Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas became a destination for vacations and relaxation, it was  visited by many people, including Native Americans in prehistoric times, in order to experience the rejuvenating feeling of the warm water that bubbled from the earth rich in minerals. Many crude bathhouses built of logs were built around this Arkansas town after it became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in order to better provide a place for people to change and relax in the water.

Because people recognized the value of the hot springs as a tourist attraction, they sought the government’s help in preserving its natural beauty. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson signed the legislation that would prevent anyone from building or developing on the land in or around the hot springs by designating the area as a national reservation. This made the Arkansas Hot Springs one of the oldest federally designated sites in the entire country, even older than Yellowstone which would not be dedicated until forty years later. Hot Springs Reservation became Hot Springs National Park in 1921 by an act of Congress.

In May of 1933, H. Raymond Gregg was selected to be the first ever policeman of the Hot Springs National Park. He was extremely proficient in science, especially botany, and actually performed the duties of the Park’s first naturalist, a tradition that lives on today.