2010 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 in Arkansas. The area was first established as a reservation in 1832, and later became a National Park in 1921.
The reverse design for the Hot Springs National Park Quarter will feature the ornate facade of the main park building. One of park’s many fountains appears in the foreground of the image. The inscriptions read “Hot Springs”, “Arkansas”, ” E Pluribus Unum”, and the date “2010″. The reverse was designed by Don Everhart and sculpted by Joseph Menna.
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.”
The quarter will be released into circulation on April 19, 2010 with an official launch ceremony held at the park on the following day. The United States Mint will also offer an assortment of products which include the quarter such as numismatic bags and rolls and the 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters Proof Set.
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.
