The story of Hot Springs

History is alive in downtown Hot Springs - in the form of a 5-foot-6-inch woman dressed as a bookseller and storyteller from the 1890s.

Each Friday and Saturday at Kenneth Adair Memorial Park, author and Arkansas historian Janis Percefull is transformed into Madge McCormick, a character she created to help tell the story of Hot Springs.

Dressed in a long black skirt, white blouse and hat, and carrying a parasol, Percefull greets passersby and invites them to listen to a free interpretive speech.

“Everyone is interested, and it’s hard not tobe,” Percefull said. “The history of Hot Springs is fascinating, and most people want to know more.”

Percefull partnered with the Garland County Historical Society and the Hot Springs Parks and Recreation Department to present the program through the city’s new community recreation policy, which gives nonprofit organizations the use of city parks facilities for special programming deemed beneficial to Hot Springs residents.

“I was excited when Ms. Percefull approached us with her proposal, and even more excited when she came by to show us her period clothing,” Parks and Recreation Director Jean Wallace said. “This program is a wonderful addition to Historic Downtown Hot Springs and provides our residents andvisitors with some little-known historical facts of life from the 1890s.”

Percefull’s presentations will be offered at Adair Park from 12:30-3:30 p.m. on the Fourth of July, Sunday, Sept. 4, and Monday, Sept. 5, and every 30 minutes between 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Saturday, Sept. 3.

A Hot Springs native, Percefull holds a master’s degree in public history from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and is an adjunct history instructor at National Park Community College. She is the author of Ouachita Springs Region: A Curiosity of Nature and a historical fiction series set in Hot Springs in 1895.

“I’m in two worlds, academia and entertainment, but the entertainment is educational,” Percefull said.

The series includes Three Strangers Come to Call and Cedar Glades Express, with a third book due out next year. The series, which follows two 11-year-old cousins who live in Hot Springs, is based on historical facts from the area.

“Because I am from here and my family is from here, I wanted to write not about the visitors, from their point of view, but the people who lived here, who were part of the businesses that catered to the health seekers and the pleasure seekers” Percefull said.

Her books have been showcased at the Arkansas Literacy Festival, and the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies has created lesson plans for both books to be used in the classroom.

Percefull approached the Parks and Recreation Department and the Historical Society about presenting an interpretive-speech program to audiences downtown in an effort to further promote Hot Springs history.

“I thought when she first described this project that she would be a wonderful person to interest people in local history,” said Liz Robbins, executive director of the Garland County Historical Society. “She has great flair and a sense of fun. With her deep knowledge of local history, plus her ability to engage an audienceand make history come alive, I knew this would be a terrific program.”

During her presentations, Percefull gives a brief synopsis of Hot Springs’ history from 1804 to 1890, with a focus on the area’s importance to the medical world and Hot Springs’ resulting rise as an internationally known spa town.

“There were five prized elements of the 19th century for people regaining their health that doctors would recommend,” Percefull said. “That’s sea air, mountain air, thermal springs, sulfur springs and chalybeate springs. We had four of the five, and we had them all within 12 miles of Hot Springs.”

She also discusses the federal government’s interest in the area, which led to it becoming the first federally protected land in the United States in 1832, and the effects of the Civil War on the area.

“By the 1860s, we were a happening place,” Percefull said. “But in 1861, with the onset of the war, most of the people left.”

By the time the war was over, she said, Hot Springs was desolate.

“I make the point to the audiences that even though the town was desolate physically, there had been two generations that had already seen this whole area here as a place where you came to be healed,” she added. “The springs had a certain reputation.”

By the 1890s, where her presentation concludes, Hot Springs was once again a major health resort, though the bathing industry would decline by the mid-20th century largely as a result of modern medicine.

“Fashionable spas aren’t in fashion as much as they werethen, although that would be very easy to bring back,” Percefull said. “That’s one thing I’d love to see - more people coming here to take baths. It is my hometown, so yes, I have a vested interest in seeing the tourists continue to come here, but I’m a historian also, and I recognize the importance of the history here and [the town’s] medical history.”

For more information about the author, visit www.arkansashistorystories.com.