Crescent Hotel

Second part of podcast originally aired April 16, 2021.

Built in 1886, the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the grandest hotel in the Ozarks. It’s also been named “America’s Most Haunted Hotel” - even though, I feel quite a few claim this.

The hotel itself has quite a fascinating history.
A grandiose hotel for its time, it was America’s most luxurious, with large airy rooms - fully furnished, Edison lightbulbs - which I love, electric bells, it was heated with steam and open grates, and a hydraulic elevator.

Baker Cancer Hospital

Fast forward to Spring 1930, John Tunis’s wife, Lula was dying of cancer.
By May, she was running out of time, enter Norman Baker, founder of the Baker Institute in Iowa. A flamboyant medical maverick who had the new cure for cancer. He also owned a radio station in Iowa under the call letters KTNT, which stood for here, Norman declared that big business medicine was corrupt and chose profits over patients. He also preached about alternative medicine.

Now, had John and Lula known Norman’s full background, they may not have put much faith in him.
A former Vaudeville magician, turned inventor, turned millionaire businessman, radio host Cancer doctor who had no medical training at all.
A snake oil salesman is all he was, his “magical miracle cure” was nothing but watermelon seed, brown corn silk, alcohol, and carbolic acid.

Lula was dead by Christmas.

John would testify the horrible treatment she sustained. Five to seven injections a day, where they would hold the needles there until the medicine ran out, she wanted to go home, she was getting worse, and when she left, she became bedridden immediately.

Norman Baker fled to Mexico, where he stayed until 1937, when he returned to Iowa, pled guilty to his crimes, and was run out of town. This is when he ended up in Arkansas, found a majestic hotel that had fallen on hard times - The Crescent Hotel or “The Castle in the Air”, which he turned into the new Baker Hospital - clearly he learned nothing from his past charges.

Picking up where he left off, he was pulling in $500,000 a year in Eureka Springs, but in 1939/1940 - he was found guilty and sent to Leavenworth Peniteniary.

Now that we have a little background, let’s get back to the paranormal activity.

One couple claims that as they were going to bed, they pulled the cover to the foot of the bed, sleeping with just the sheet, only when the husband awoke in the middle of the night, sweating, he found his wife in distress. Upon turning on the light, he realized the blanket nd comforter were now pulled on top of them and someone or something had tightly tucked them in.
This happened in three times in one night.
After that, they said things would be moved around in the room from where they were the night before, or if they left.

Theodora, a very proper woman who is believed to have been a staff member of Norman Baker - Room 419 was “her” room.
It’s said that if Theodora enjoys your company, she will actually clean up any messes you’ve made, from folding clothes to organizing the closet, arranging personal items that had been left strewn about.
One couple purposely left their coins scattered around the room, when they returned from dinner, their coins were in neat piles of each denomination.

Guests who checked in for room 221 where met by a man they described as being dressed in black Victorian clothing, at the elevator who offered to show them to their room. They handed him their key and told him their room number. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, remaining just outside the door, smiling and tilting his head side to side. While the husband reached to give money for a tip, the man had vanished, nowhere to be seen - even when they looked down the long hallway.
When they couple returned from their ghost tour later that evening, they found their key wouldn’t work, so they headed down to the front desk. The clerk claimed to have given them the key for 321 by mistake.
They explained the key had worked earlier for the employee, describing the man who had been so helpful, only to find there is no employee fitting that description, and no one would wear that attire while working.

Room 218 is the most haunted - and most requested room. Michael, the Irish Stonemason, who died when he fell while building the hotel.

Two friends on a ghost tour had two very different experiences at the same time while in the morgue.
One could hear a child speaking, but was unable to make out what they were saying, while the other could hear someone breathing as if they were standing right in between them.

Another guest heard their name being said.

Guests experience cold spots and being touched.

In room 419, a woman’s camera kept going off until the battery drained, and upon viewing the photos, there was a photo of Theodora with a ghostly skull covering half of her face.

Most of the spirits at the Crescent seem pretty wholesome and helpful.

There’s an orange cat named Morris who wanders the halls, I hear he’s a very sweet and docile cat. His gravesite sits on the hotel grounds.

I know I say this about a lot of the hotels, but this one should also definitely be added to your Spooky Space Bucket List.

Dorothy Jane Scott

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel