ARKANSAS - The Crescent Hotel

by: Kelli Patrick

The Crescent Hotel was built in the middle-late 1800's and has been several things besides a hotel. It has been a college for girls in the 1920's and a controversial hospital and health spa in the 1930's.

A man known as Michael, an Irish stonemason who worked on the hotel when it was being built in 1885, fell from the roof and died in the second-floor area which became room 218.

Doctor Baker ran the hotel as a hospital and health spa in the 1930's. He practiced medicine without a license. Supposedly he like to perform experiments on his patients. The state shut the hospital down.

Michael has stayed on at the hotel playing tricks with the lights and TV, or pounds loudly from inside the thick walls in the room. There are also other spirits here. The ghost of a nurse dressed in white has been reported on the third floor. A gentleman in Victorian clothing haunts the lobby. He has been spotted at the bottom of the stairway and sitting at the lobby bar. Other apparitions have been spotted in rooms 202 and 424. The ghost of Doctor Baker, who ran the hospital has been seen in the old recreation room and at the foot of the first-floor stairway.

When I was in high school, I went on a weekend trip to the Crescent Hotel. I was babysitting and was staying in one room with the two children on the third floor. The first night I stayed there, the girl was having trouble sleeping and wanted to stay in her parents room. I opened the door to our room and stepped in the hallway. We saw the ghost of the nurse pushing a medicine cart. She was dressed in white with her nurses hat and had a gray apron. We saw her from the back. She kept walking and we ran into the next room where the parents were staying. That next morning, we were sitting at a table in the ballroom/meeting area. While we were eating, I heard a small child talking and giggling right next to me. I never saw a child, but only heard it. I did not know the history about the hotel until I read a book about it a few years later.

My father stayed at the hotel in 1996 and had a strange "dream." In his dream, he was lying on the bed and the room walls turned purple. He was now paralyzed and coming at him were a doctor and a nurse. They were dressed in vintage clothing and the doctor had some type of sharp medical instrument. Was this Doctor Baker and his nurse? The next morning, he asked some local people about the history of the hotel. One person told him about Doctor Baker and his medical practices.

Besides the ghosts, the hotel is a great place to stay, if you dare!

 

Contact Info

Address:

Eureka Springs, AR, 72632

Telephone:

(501) 253-9766

Sources

Hauck, Dennis William. Haunted Places, The National Directory.
New York, New York. Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1994.