The Baker Lore
What really happened from 1937 to 1939 at the Baker Hospital in Eureka Springs, Arkansas? It’s a mystery that sparked the paranormal and has been the subject of numerous books and thousands of reports.
The Discovery Re-Sparks Interest in Baker
In February 2019, a landscaper at the 1886 Crescent Hotel made an amazing discovery when she unearthed a dump site filled with hundreds of bottles. A new clue to a long mystery had been discovered.
What followed was a formal archeological dig with archeologists that discovered bottles containing mysterious chemical concoctions and “medical specimens” believed to be a product of the years when the hotel was transformed into a “cancer curable” hospital by charlatan Norman Baker.
When the unearthing was first released to the press, there was international news coverage. For years, there had been rumors of unfathomable bottles once being displayed in the hotel in an area that Baker used as a morgue, but never any proof, short of a poster that Baker used to promote his hospital’s alleged amazing cures.
Those grisly bottles were moved to be included as part of the nightly ghost tours when you visit the morgue, but their contents remained unanswered….until now.
Mystery Solved
Larry Flaxman, best-selling author, speaker, and paranormal researcher, has been involved with the Crescent Hotel’s paranormal conferences since 2012. When the bottles were discovered, Flaxman was called and immediately drove to the hotel. Numerous samples were handed over to the Arkansas Archeological Survey at the University of Arkansas to be recorded, but after 3 years, no progress had been made in identifying their contents. Growing frustrated with no answers, Flaxman gained permission to take several bottles in early 2022 with the hope of finding someone to medically identify what was actually in the bottles. After dozens of attempts and rejections, Flaxman had all but given up when he was contacted by Dr. Matt Quick, a surgical pathologist at the University of Arkansas Medical Center who specializes in tissue analysis.
Dr. Quick volunteered his assistance, fueled by his own curiosity. Dr. Quick had previously had an encounter with the paranormal at the same Crescent Hotel years before.