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Category Archives: Americas Most Haunted Hotel

Ghostly Happenings at the Crescent Hotel

September 30, 2021

Built in 1886, there have been hundreds of tales of paranormal experiences at the Crescent Hotel & Spa. Given its history, it’s not surprising. Besides being a popular mountaintop resort, the hotel has served as both a girls’ college and a cancer hospital–where “Doctor” Norman Baker claimed to have the cure for cancer. Announced as America’s Most Haunted Hotel by the likes of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures, an abundance of extraordinary experiences have always attracted the attention of paranormal investigators who have traveled to the property to study and research the hotel’s supernatural activity.

Famed tales include: • Room 218, where Michael, an Irish stonemason who fell to his death when building the hotel is known to hang out. • Theodora, a cancer patient is known to be seen fumbling for her keys outside Room 419 as well as tidying up for guests when they leave the room. • Breckie, a 4-year-old child of Richard & Mary Breckenridge Thompson who died in the hotel due to complications from appendicitis. He has been seen throughout the hotel often bouncing a ball. • Dr. John Freemont Ellis, the hotel’s in-house doctor circa the late nineteenth century is most often seen–or his cherry pipe tobacco is smelled–near his office which is now room 212. • Morris, the famed hotel cat, was known as the Hotel General Manager for 21 years, and later buried on the hotel property is regularly seen and heard.

While the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs has many ghost stories of the past, what makes it America’s Most Haunted Hotel is the activity of today and the throngs of paranormal investigators who study throughout the year and who travel to the property each year in January to share findings.

Many paranormal investigators have come to believe that limestone has a special ability to absorb and release electromagnetic and psychic energies. Crescent Mountain, the hilltop the hotel sits on, is predominantly limestone. The massive eighteen-inch-thick stones used for the body of the hotel were made of limestone as well. These factors may very well contribute to the abundant paranormal activity the hotel guests’ experience.

Part of the Mystery Unsolved

A recurring phenomenon happens in a spot on the 3rd floor where the hotel connects to an “annex” built onto the hotel when it was a hospital. The area has been said to be a portal to the other side. Multiple guests have grown faint, with a few passing out briefly, at the same stop on the nightly ghost tour with no reasonable explanation. The occurrences go in spurts, many happening over several weeks or months, and then none for some time. Guests suddenly turn pale, falling against and then sliding down the wall in a faint. Although the loss of consciousness does not last very long and complete recovery is immediate, it tends to further substantiate the hotel’s legendary supernatural connection to the paranormal.

Reports Continue from the Days of Being a Hospital

“There has been quite an uptick in activity in the morgue. I think we have stirred things up a bit with the discovery of the remains” says Debra “The Duchess”, manager of the nightly ghost tours referring to the 2019 uncovering of a secret bottle grave of the Crescent’s most infamous resident owner, Norman Baker. A certified archeological dig found hundreds of bottles of Baker’s “secret formula” as well as jars containing “medical specimens” that had been surgically removed from patients.

A dark figure has been seen recently in the morgue and there has been an increase in cold spots and reports of people being touched.

Throngs of Amateur Investigators

Year-round, the hotel hosts paranormal thrill-seekers.  Over 35,000 of these ghost hunters will take the tour annually. This interest has spurred an entire community of paranormal enthusiasts who participate in a Facebook group called The Crescent Hotel Ghost Tours.  Over 5000 members from across the country have shared thousands of their photos and paranormal experiences while visiting the hotel. 

Researchers Meet Every Year to Study Findings

Annually, the hotel hosts a conclave (Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend), to bring together interested investigators of all experience levels with nationally known paranormal investigators for overnight ghost hunts and to seek answers. One weekend became two weekends as headliners for the weekends’ best-selling author Larry Flaxman and founder of the Ozarks Paranormal Society, Dave Harkins found both the evidence of the paranormal and the interest level of amateur investigators more than could be served in one weekend.

Flaxman noted what draws so many ghost hunters back to the hotel, “The rich history of the Crescent Hotel, including the unscrupulous acts of Norman Baker and the physical, emotional, and mental pain of his cancer patients who occupied the Crescent during its time as a hospital, has left an indelible mark. Hauntings are common in locations where there has been extreme trauma and tragedy and the long history of tragedies at this property has lent itself to producing an environment highly conducive for paranormal activity and making the Crescent Hotel America’s Most Haunted Hotel.”

Evidence of the haunting came to the forefront at the 2021 Paranormal Weekend, as a full-body apparition was captured on camera with the help of a ghost hunting tool called a laser grid that creates pinpoints of lights. If a light or group of lights are missing it’s because they are being blocked by something. The picture was taken during an investigation by an amateur investigator in the Crystal Dining Room. A figure had often been reported in this location sitting on the window sill waiting for someone and now that has been backed by evidence.

Ghost at the Crescent Hotel

Is the hotel really haunted? Numerous people believe it is. According to many, it is considered the most haunted hotel in America. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Book a stay at the Crescent Hotel and join the community of paranormal investigators.

September 30, 2021

Paranormal Pair

September 15, 2021

Paranormal Package

Get into the Halloween “spirit” and plan a getaway to two of the most haunted hotels in Arkansas.

Since its beginning in 1886, there have been tales of paranormal experiences at the Crescent Hotel & Spa.  Given its history, it’s not surprising. Besides being a popular mountaintop resort, the hotel has a sorted past that includes serving as both a cancer hospital and girls’ college but has also gone through periods of sketchy ownership and closure.  Now on solid ground, the legacy of the past continues with regular visits from “past” guests and hotel characters while guests of “today” resist fainting at the portal or fend off the chill in the morgue. Featured on Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, CNN, The Travel Channel, and many more, the abundance of extraordinary experiences still attracts international ghost hunters and expert paranormal investigators.

The Basin Park, The Peoples Hotel was established in 1905 and so started the stories of illegal liquor, slot machines, late-night card games, and illicit activity.  Soon thereafter, came stories of paranormal activities connected to the site and its notorious personalities. Many believe that the hauntings are due to the hotel being constructed on the site where The Perry House perished in a fire in 1890, others point to the Osage Neutral Ground of Basin Spring Park.  What all agree, something is happening with the whistler, the gambler’s throat, the bishop, and in the cave that once served as a hidden speakeasy.

For a limited time, The Paranormal Pair Package allows thrill-seekers to enjoy a night at each hotel with two tickets to the Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour and two Basin Park Paranormal investigations.  All at nearly $200 off retail cost.

Eureka Springs Haunted HotelPackage Includes: 1 Night Stay at the Basin Park Hotel 1 Night Stay at the Crescent Hotel Plus 2 Crescent Ghost Tour Tickets 2 Basin Park Paranormal Investigation Tickets $350 plus taxes and fees. Valid Monday through Thursday October 25th-November 4th, 2021.

Call 877-643-4972 to book

 

September 15, 2021

2022 Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend

July 30, 2021

The dates for the 2022 ESP Weekends have been set for January 28th-30th and February 4th-6th.

The agenda is coming soon, but you can go ahead and purchase your tickets and reserve your room.

Buy Tickets

Book a Room

July 30, 2021

This Hotel Was Once A Cancer Hospital, And Ghosts Of The Patients Are Reportedly Still There

May 19, 2020

As welcoming as hotels may appear, some are prime spots for unwanted spirits. As rumor has it, few lodgings are as haunted as the Crescent Hotel, where almost every room has at least one ghost. But how did this place become haunted? The haunting of the Crescent Hotel stems from a tragic, horrifying history that goes back more than a century.

The hotel was once a hospital for cancer patients. At the Crescent, a “doctor” reportedly advertised miracle cures and led a fraudulent scheme to scam cancer patients out of thousands of dollars. It’s no wonder the basement once served as a morgue.

Not only is the Crescent Hotel considered one of the most haunted places in Arkansas, but it’s also one of the most well-known haunted hotels in the United States. Do you have the nerve to stay at the Crescent?   Read More…

May 19, 2020

Haunted History in NWA

October 20, 2019

The hotel is home to several rumored ghosts and according to Bill Ott, Director of Marketing and Communication at the hotel, the spirits have made themselves known to guests. “The most famous ghosts we have in the hotel are Michael who hangs out in room 213, he was a stonemason that fell to his death in the footprint of that room. The other one is Theodora in room 419. If you mess up the room or she doesn’t like you, she’ll put your luggage in front of the door which makes it difficult for it to open.” Read More…

October 20, 2019

Arkansas CW Crew checks into the Crescent Hotel…

October 19, 2019

crescent hotel arkansas cw

In this edition of “Paranormal Adventures with The Crew”, we check in to the historic 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa in Eureka Springs. Touted as one of “America’s Most Haunted Hotels”, The Crescent Hotel was built in 1886. For the first 15 years, it served the carriage set and was an exclusive year-round hotel resort. Due to annual off-season hotel vacancies, the hotel was turned into the Crescent College & Conservatory for Young Women in 1908. The College closed down in 1934. Read More…

October 19, 2019

Live Interview from Travel Itch Radio

October 15, 2019

travel itch radio crescent hotel

Happy Halloween a week early! Hear all about America’s most haunted hotel when Bill Ott of the 1886 Crescent in Eureka Springs, Arkansas visits TRAVEL ITCH RADIO.

LISTEN

October 15, 2019

Ghostly Legend at America’s Most Haunted Hotel Enhanced in 2019

August 30, 2019

For decades upon decades the stories of “the Baker    years” at the 1886 Crescent Hotel have been told.  With no living eyewitnesses to these stories, they were mere legend.  It wasn’t until earlier this year that actual proof of these stories was literally uncovered when the Arkansas Archeological Survey team carefully uncovered the secret bottle grave of the Crescent’s most infamous resident owner, Norman Baker.

Also unearthed, it seems, was additional paranormal activity further validating this historic resort, located atop the Arkansas Ozarks, as “America’s most haunted hotel”.  This ghostly moniker has now been chiseled into granite… or more accurately stated: limestone, the predominate rock formations of Crescent Mountain.

Baker, a charlatan from Muscatine IA, owned the hotel in the late 1930s when he operated the structure as a cancer hospital where promises of a cure filled the hotel with suffering victims of the disease.  His bottles contained a) several of his “curing” potions, despite the fact that no one was ever cured; and b) fleshy medical specimens extracted from his patients, despite the fact that Baker was not a doctor.  Also found was an identifiable section of one of his promotional movies, a find that the archeologists said was like finding Baker’s business card.

“We had heard the stories.  We had read the promises of Baker’s promotional material.  We had even seen his poster where he proudly displayed his bottled cures and bottled tumors extricated from his patients,” explained Jack Moyer, hotel vice president and general manager, “but it wasn’t until more than 500 bottles from the northwest corner of our 15 acres were excavated during a formal archeological dig, did we actually get to see these antique bottles of macabre proof.”

Added proof of these bottles’ authenticity came during an interview with two ladies, Genevieve Bowman and Dorothy Bridgeman, who once served the hotel as waitpersons while in high school.  Each, upon seeing them again, remembers the bottles as those they saw during excursions to the hotel’s basement area that was Baker’s morgue.  It was in the morgue where these bottle were stored in a displayed manner.

The legend now proven has spawned such often re-experienced paranormal encounters as children being seen huddled under the morgue’s autopsy table pleading for help; the reoccurrence of a Baker patient who also served as a hospital assistant being seen in and around Room 419, better known as Theodora’s room; the early morning, loud squeaking of wheels in the third floor corridor accompanied by sightings of a nurse pushing a corpse-laden gurney down the hallway only to see it vanish into thin air; and the numerous “conversations” with former patients by way of responses via an EMF (electromagnetic field) ghost meter during paranormal investigations.

The interest in the paranormal aspect of the Crescent Hotel has drawn more than 15 national and international television production companies to visit this Historic Hotel of America and air ghostly episodes on the hotel.  Two such notable programs are the Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” and the Syfy channel’s “Ghost Hunters”.  With the airing of each episode, ghost aficionados flock to Eureka Springs to see firsthand the hotel and now its bottle find.  “Our numbers are growing exponentially,” Moyer added.

The best of the unearthed bottles is now back on display in the Crescent’s morgue.  Both the morgue, complete with autopsy table, and a walk-in cooler where Baker stored cadavers and body parts are open for public viewing as part of the hotel’s nightly ghost tour.  Even the burial site, the archeological dig locale, has been preserved and is open for viewing during the hotel’s VIP Ghost Tour.

To add to the enhanced paranormal interest during the month of October, hotel guests will also be able to take part in such extra resort offerings as “Flickering Tales”, a campfire circle where Ozark ghost stories are told under a nighttime sky; and a private paranormal panel entitled “Ghost Tour Guides: Their Inside Stories”, a forum where veteran Crescent Hotel ghost guides tell of their personal hair-raising encounters while touring the “Grand Ol’ Lady of The Ozarks”.

 

August 30, 2019

KY3 Crescent Hotel Displays Artifacts to the Public

June 11, 2019

In the 1930s, a man claimed he had miraculous cures for cancer in Eureka Springs.”  One of the people who is very prominent is Norman Baker, the guy who ran this place as a faux cancer hospital for a couple of years,” said Keith Scales, the ghost tour manager at the Crescent Hotel. Read More.

June 11, 2019

Ghost Adventures visits Eureka Springs

June 11, 2019

Click On Link to View Photos

Watch Episode

ghost adventures eureka springs

June 11, 2019

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