Hot Springs Vacations, Hot Springs Vacation Reviews, Tourism Guide

Hot Springs Vacation Guide

Hot Springs lies along the banks of Fall River in the southern Black Hills. The natural warm-water springs for which the city is named continue to flow, supporting a small spa and recreation industry and, during cold weather, causing the river to steam as it flows through town.

The springs were revered by the indigenous Lakota Sioux as a way to cure ailments, a view adopted by the area's first white settlers. When the railroad arrived here in the early 1890s, Hot Springs soon became a resort town, giving the city a degree of national notoriety. With natural-fed spas all the rage among high society in the Victorian era, Hot Springs soon became quite prosperous. The downtown district boomed. Sandstone, quarried from the surrounding canyons, was the construction material of choice. Many of these turn-of-the-century buildings still remain.

Tourism continues to be the city's main industry. Several small hotels and bed & breakfasts are scattered throughout the town of 4,000 people. A health spa, an indoor swimming area and a prehistoric fossil bed, where several dozen wooly mammoth remains are being uncovered in situ, are Hot Springs' most visited sites. Angostura Reservoir and Wind Cave National Park, both just a few miles outside town, are other popular stops.