Hot Spring County

Hot Spring County was formed on November 2, 1829, by the Territorial Legislature from a part of Clark County. The county's name came from the natural hot springs that later became world famous as a part of Garland County. The county seat is Malvern. The landscape is forested ridges, and river bottomland, with the Ouachita Mountains in the north and west and rolling hills in the southeast. Hot Spring County's economy base is beef and dairy cattle, and cultivation of hay, soybeans and rice. Industrial development includes lumber mills, brick plants, metals, and small industry. The county has many varieties (65) of valuable minerals including the nation's greatest concentrations of novaculite and vanadium and magnet ore. Lake Catherine, set in a forest of tall pines and hardwoods, offers a getaway for fishing and other water sports, and the State Park offers campsites, cabins, hiking trails, and a marina. The Ouachita River is well known for it's fishing and floating. As of the 2000 census, Hot Spring County had a population of 30,353 residents.