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.
A new Ghost Adventures season will start Saturday evening with one of the most anticipated lockdowns in the reality show’s history. Zak Bagans and the crew will be seen investigating the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spain Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which made headlines for an oddity unearthing just after the crew left the property. Read More.
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As if tales of ghosts and hauntings at the famous Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs isn’t disturbing enough, a landscaper at the hotel recently discovered something pretty creepy buried on the grounds. It appears they’ve dug up old bottles filled with human body parts.
Among the many tales about the history of the hotel, is one about Norman Baker, a former owner, who they say ran the property as a cancer hospital.
Well, the discovery of the first bottle has led to a full-blown archaeological excavation.
It started when hotel groundskeepers found the first bottle 3 months ago.
“And really didn’t have any idea what was going on, until I picked up the first bottle that had a clear fluid in it, with something in it,” said Crescent Hotel landscaper Susan Benton.
So far, they’ve discovered 500 bottles that point to the stories of Norman Baker using the hotel to treat cancer patients back in the late 1930s.
Hotel ghosts tours manager, Keith Scales says he recognized the bottles from a display.
“We have this displayed in the hotel, where we do the tours, so I see this every day,” Scales said, “Some of the bottles are medicines. Some of the bottles are…medical specimens. What he claimed were tumors that he had taken out of his patients — put in alcohol or formaldehyde and kept in bottles as evidence that his cure was working.”
Although the dig area was considered a dump site, archaeologists say they can tell a lot of thought went into the disposal of these bottles.
“You have these lined walls here that they actually did do hand excavating to actually dig a pit first, said archaeologist Jared Pebworth, “So, they were thinking about how they were going to get rid of their trash instead of just coming up here to the hillside, throwing it down the hillside.”
Archaeologist Michael Evans says they also dug up 16-millimeter film.
“The films in really bad shape… but, we were able to lift a few little images from the film — and one of the images said, after.. before Baker treatment,” said Evans, “It’s a unique find, very exciting.” Archaeologists also found an old bone saw they believe Baker may have used to work on patients.
CHAPTER ONE
On February 5, 2019, while working to extend a parking pad at the north end of the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa’s 15 acres of mountaintop property, a chance discovery was made by the hotel’s landscape gardener, Susan Benson. There in that first scoop of dirt were a couple strange, medical-looking bottles. Knowing part of the hotel’s history that it was once a “cancer curing hospital” in the late 1930s, Benson called the hotel’s ghost tour manager, Keith Scales. Upon his arrival, Scales realized the bottles he was looking at were identical to those that appeared on an advertising poster of the late Norman Baker, the charlatan who operated the hospital.
Careful hand-digging uncovered a few more -even more dynamic- bottles, one of which contained “something” floating in a nearly clear liquid. Again, from what was on the faux doctor’s poster, it was perceived to be what looked like a cancerous tumor that Baker used as a “look what I can do” advertisement for his magical, medicinal albeit false claim of curing cancer. The hotel’s general manager was called.
That call led to a “stop order” on any future digging until archeologists from the nearby University of Arkansas-Fayetteville could offer their advice. That advice included calling the local police (who called the state crime lab) and the local fire department (who called in a hazmat crew). Each gave their okay on moving forward on “the dig”. Fast forward two months…
CHAPTER TWO
On April 9, 2019, team members of the Arkansas Archeology Survey (AAS), part of the University of Arkansas system, arrived from the nearby Fayetteville campus, to begin their meticulous study. They began to carefully peel back layers of dirt and rock. Cutting root clusters as needed, the “find” was slowly uncovered.
With each descending layer of soil, the find became more and more miraculous. AAS team members and hotel management got very excited for the lost dump site for a notorious, infamous charlatan, Norman Baker, who turned the resort hotel into a cancer hospital in the late 1930s, had surprisingly been found.
Baker treated hundreds of people, patients who were grasping at straws trying to be cured of their deadly disease, but no cure ever occurred. He did however extract literally millions of dollars from his endeavor; money scammed from the families and trusting patients of the Cancer Curable Baker Hospital with many of the patients dying at hands of Baker.
All the folklore, all the hair-raising stories, all the rumors were now proving to be true with each and every bottle, medical specimen jar, gruesome surgical tool, etc. as they arose from their 80-year-old grave. Physical remnants of Baker’s Cancer Curable Hospital could now be seen, studied and displayed. The discovery echoed throughout the United States thanks to such news outlets as Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, CNN, and Newsweek, to name just a few.
“What surprised us the most,” said Jack V. Moyer, general manager and vice president of operations of the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, “were several calls from eyewitnesses who remember the ‘Baker years’ and some of whom actually saw these same bottles in the area of the building that Baker used as his morgue and autopsy room. Both of those rooms, which are now a key component of our nightly ghost tours, were stripped bare of artifacts before the current owners came on board in 1997.
“We had been told those artifacts had been taken to the dump. We thought that meant the county’s solid waste dump but low and behold they had been dumped on hotel property.”
Moyer explained that these bottles would become part of a special display in the morgue, adding to the macabre ambiance of the ghost tour and that the bottle burial site itself will be encased and available for viewing on special tours. The planned date for this shocking debut is set for June 1.
“What we wait for now is how this find and the resurrection of these bottles has spiked our paranormal activity,” Moyer concluded. “Already paranormal experts and ghost hunters are waiting to return to ‘America’s Most Haunted Hotel’ to see at what higher level there must be following this bizarre bottle exhumation.”
CHAPTER THREE awaits.
***FRIDAY JANUARY 4TH AND 11TH 2019***
3:00 p.m. CHECK-IN begins at the 1886 Crescent Hotel front desk. SIGN UP at ESP WELCOME TABLE in the Living Café in the Conservatory for:
Please feel free to explore the hotel, check out the CRESCENT COLLEGE HISTORY PROJECT exhibit (4th floor), indulge in the SKYBAR GOURMET PIZZARIA (4th floor) or CRESCENT CONFECTIONS (lobby), find souvenirs at the ESP SUPERNATURAL SUPERMARKET (Living Café) or SERENDIPITY AT THE CRESCENT art gallery (lobby) and visit the NEW MOON SPA (garden level).
The following activities and events will take place beginning at 9:00 p.m. FRIDAY
***SATURDAY JANUARY 5TH AND 12TH 2019*** The Investigation Begins!
SHUTTLE available to the BASIN PARK HOTEL (ask at front desk), but it’s only a five-minute drive if you’d rather take your own car. Parking available on the street.
Tiptoe time! You may continue exploring independently but please be considerate of sleeping guests.
The following INTERACTIVE EXPLORATIONS will take place between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. E.S.P. (Extra-Sensory Perception) manifests in many ways. Some people believe we all possess these faculties, and simply need to locate them within ourselves. Are you in touch with your psychic abilities? ESP!19 provides the opportunity for you to explore your PSI potential. SIGN UP AT THE ESP WELCOME TABLE for:
• TELEPATHY TESTING: Two-person, 15-minute sessions starting at 10:00 a.m. (Governor’s Suite, Room 101 off the lobby, Crescent Hotel)
• REMOTE VIEWING EXPERIMENTS: Time and Place to be announced
• PSYCHOMANTEUM: Open up a conduit to your own mind – – or is it the Other Side? One-person, 15-minute appointments available 2:00 p.m. Saturday, to 2:00 a.m. Sunday. (Norman Baker’s penthouse, room 502.)
• PSYCHIC SALON: three psychics, three kinds of reading. Appointments taken at the Salon. (Lobby) (Not included in your package.)
• PRIVATE SESSIONS with Certified Hypnotist MELANIE BELL: Further information and sign-up at ESP WELCOME TABLE in the Living Café. (Not included with your package.)
***SUNDAY, JANUARY 6TH AND 13TH 2019***
SHUTTLE available to the BASIN PARK HOTEL (ask at front desk), but it’s only a five-minute drive if you’d rather take your own car. Parking available on the street.
Tiptoe time! You may continue exploring independently but please be considerate of sleeping guests.
Noon CHECK-OUT
Farewells and photo-ops.
