beautiful place!
Not pool related, but pretty damn good novel called Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter is set in post-WWII Hot Springs - pretty entertaining read (precursor to the one about the sniper they later made a movie about) and made me more interested in learning about that place/era when I read the book on a vacation many years ago.
Hot Springs and the surrounding area is beautiful! The mountains are more like tree covered hills and tend to be softly rounded, much older than the comparatively "new" mountains out west. Lake Ouachita offers 40,000 acres of clear, clean water surrounded by the scenic Ouachita National Forest forty-five minutes away. The land around it being national forest means there is very little build-up on the shores and you can enjoy the unspoiled scenery. The water near the dam stays at about thirty-five degrees year around. A dip will cool you off in a hurry!
I first visited Hot Springs on a family vacation when my age was still in single digits I believe. Dad's friend was a guide on the lake and had a fourteen foot very narrow Skeeter bass boat with a huge forty horse engine on it. About the size of a bathtub to hold two men and a boy. A forty thousand acre lake can get very choppy sometimes but we caught lots of bass, including schooling bass in the afternoons.
The tourism seems to have died down in Hot Springs which is all to the good. The springs are still there, as are some bath houses. Some bath houses are family oriented now, some I am not too sure about. Prostitution was one of the "features" of Hot Springs in the not too distant past.
I once dreamed of living in or near Hot Springs. Never happened but I have made a half-dozen or so trips there. Genuinely nice people for the most part and a nice climate.
Apologies for the slight thread detour. I have to talk up Hot Springs when I get a chance. Catman and Country Calvin live in or near Arkadelphia, in maybe even more beautiful country than Hot Springs but without the springs or tourism in bygone days. An hour or two away from Hot Springs best I recall. It has been twenty to thirty years since I have been that way. The four corners area and the nation's backbone have got my attention now. When I need some fresh air the southwest and west have extremely powerful pulls too!
Hu