Moon Mausoleum
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The Crescent Hotel in Arkansas started and ended the 20th century as a luxury hotel among the many healing springs it is known for. In between it was also known as a notorious experimental cancer hospital, women’s college and an abandoned building. This has created a multitude of ghost legends.
The Crescent Hotel in Arkansas started and ended the 20th century as a luxury hotel among the many healing springs it is known for. In between it was also known as a notorious experimental cancer hospital, women’s college and an abandoned building. This has created a multitude of ghost legends.
A beautiful spring day in the Ozark Mountains, a couple was trying to check into Room 221 at the old and historic Crescent Hotel. They walk out the elevator on the second floor and are greeted by a man wearing an all black Victorian style outfit. He asks if they need any help finding the room and they follow him, believing him to be an employee in uniform. He leads them to their room and unlocks the door, standing outside smiling, tilting his head from side to side. When they entered, they remembered they hadn’t tipped him and turned around, but he had disappeared.
Thinking nothing more of this, they spent the rest of the day in the room, only leaving for dinner in the evening. But when they tried to reenter the room in the evening, their card didn’t work. When they asked about it at the front desk, they told them they had gotten the wrong card, as it was for Room 321. Confused, they told about the employee that had helped them. The front desk told them, perhaps knowing full well what had happened: “We don’t have a staff member like that working here”.
Near the edge of the Ozark National Forest in northern Arkansas mountain region, the Crescent Hotel used to be famous for its healing springs around the city, now it is notorious for its eerie atmosphere and extensive ghost stories that it has accumulated over the years.
The Native Americans had known about these springs for ages and when bottled water from the springs sold well in the 1800s, people started to flock to the place and by 1881 it was the fourth largest city in Arkansas and a hotel was needed to accommodate the people.
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Since its grand opening in 1886 with all the famous people of the time, this historic hotel has been a hotbed of paranormal activity, earning its reputation as one of the most haunted hotels in the United States within many of the 78 rooms.
Among its myriad spectral tales, one particular story from Christmastime continues to mystify and intrigue visitors to this day.
It was during one particularly festive Christmas season when an unusual event unfolded within the grand confines of the Crescent Hotel. Guests had gathered to marvel at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the hotel’s opulent dining room, adorned with sparkling ornaments and surrounded by an array of carefully wrapped gifts. The tree stood as a beacon of holiday cheer, its lights casting a warm glow over the historic hall. The room known as The Crystal Dining was closed off during the night.
However, the serene holiday setting was soon disrupted by a perplexing occurrence. One morning, guests and staff were astounded to discover that the entire Christmas tree, along with all its packages, had been inexplicably moved to the opposite side of the room. The initial reaction was one of confusion and disbelief. Who could have orchestrated such a prank without leaving any trace of their actions?
The next morning again, the tree and packages had moved again with the chairs circling it like a new holiday symbol they were facing.
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As the guests pondered this mysterious relocation, whispers began to spread about sightings of ghostly figures. Several visitors reported seeing apparitions dressed in elegant Victorian attire wandering through the dining room. These spectral figures, seemingly from a bygone era, appeared to be in high spirits, as if engaged in their own Yuletide celebration. Witnesses described the phantoms as playful, with a mischievous gleam in their ghostly eyes, and it was believed that they were responsible for the eerie rearrangement of the room.
The following day, as the Crescent Hotel staff arrived to restore order, they found that everything had mysteriously returned to its original position. The tree and the gifts were once again exactly where they had been before the supernatural intervention. It was as if the ghostly revelers had finished their fun and tidied up before vanishing into the ether.
But it wasn’t only this one Christmas day that the Dining room felt like someone was haunting it as dancing and festive people in Victorian clothing can be spotted year round, the golden era of the Crescent Hotel. It is especially here in the room known as the Crystal Dining Room that a lot of the ghost stories come from. Employees could return in the morning and find the menus scattered throughout the room with everything else in place, well knowing that no one else had been inside it.
A story often circulating comes from a waitress that worked in the Crystal Dining Room. Once, as she was tidying plates, taking orders and bringing food, the waitress caught her own reflection in a mirror between the dining room and the kitchen. Looking back was a man and woman wearing Victorian clothing, facing each other like for a wedding. As the groom caught her gaze, they both disappeared. The waitress quit her job right after.
Another thing often seen and heard in the room is when a man wearing Victorian clothing again sits at a table by the windows alone. When asked what he’s doing by the unsuspected staff, he answers: “I saw the most beautiful woman here last night and I am waiting for her to return.”
Many of the stories we know of are told by the cook of the Crescent Hotel, Steve Garrison was just slicing up vegetables in the kitchen of the dining room when he saw a little boy. The little boy was weaning old fashioned clothes and knickers skipping around in the kitchen. Another morning as he was turning on the lights all of the pots and pans flew off the hooks and onto the floor. Garrison also would like to point out that he never drinks at all.
The ghosts of the Crescent Hotel are numerous and varied, like Clifton “Brecki”, the 4 year old child of Richard and Mary Breckenridge Thompson who died in the hotel because of appendicitis, bouncing his ball throughout the Crescent Hotel, wanting to play with the children in the hotel. In the halls there is a waiter carrying butter, or Dr. John Freemont Ellis, who was the hotel’s in-house doctor in the late 19th century with his cherry tobacco smelling close to his office, now turned into room 212.
In many of the rooms, guests experience strange things as they stay there. A couple said they had been sleeping only with the sheet. The husband woke up and found the comforter having been tucked over them. This happened three more times that night.
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There are also ghosts and things that happen that people seem unable to explain that have no names or history. Each spirit carries a story, adding to the tapestry of paranormal phenomena that envelops the hotel. Let’s have a closer look at some of them:
Many of the ghosts are said to be old ghosts from the Victorian era to pre war times. One of the youngest ghosts though is said to not be a human though, but a ginger tabby cat. Morris, the cat known as the Hotel General Manager for 21 years, was beloved by guests and staff alike. There have been many cats at the hotel, but no one as famous as Morris who came in 1973. When he died over 300 attended his funeral when he was buried on the property.
Today his picture is in the Crescent Hotel lobby and on the east lawn his headstone can be seen. But it is also said that his ghost can be seen and heard sneaking around the hotel and many guests have reported about a feeling of something feeling like a cat rubbing up against their leg.
When they built the Crescent Hotel, they brought many stonemasons from Ireland when they started construction in 1884. One of these was a 17-year old, that at least today goes by as Micheal.
There is also said to be an Irish stone mason who fell to his death in the 1880s when they were building the hotel. He was said to have been attractive and flirtatious and died when he tried to get a woman’s attention allegedly. This is also said to have lasted in his afterlife and he is known for tapping women’s shoulders and even pulling back their shower curtain.
Where he died is now room 218 and it is said it is one of the most paranormal active rooms at the Crescent Hotel. It is said the red-haired ghost is the most spotted one and the staff simply refer to the well known entity haunting the place as Michael today.
Guests that have stayed at the place claim to have seen hands coming out of the bathroom mirror, and the screaming of a man in the ceiling falling. The lights and TV go on and off, the door is opening and closing, sometimes even being difficult to even open again.
Guests sleeping say they have been shaken awake, felt dizzy and nauseated staying in the room or even just passing by, and there is banging on the walls. Once, a guest ran screaming out from the room, claiming to have seen blood splatter all over the walls.
The Crescent Hotel’s haunted reputation is rooted in a history fraught with tragedy and intrigue. Built in 1886 as a luxury resort for the affluent that enjoyed the healing waters in the day, and the elaborate parties in the evening, it later served various roles, including as a girl’s college and a hospital. When some of the tourism to the healing springs dried up at the turn of the century, they made it into The Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Money in the off season to bring in money in 1908 to 1924.
From the time as a college student, people claim to see a young woman that is haunting from the time. This is a bit vague story, but it is said she was a love-struck student and is said to have either jumped or pushed off the third or fourth floor balcony on the east side where she died.
Those staying close to the balcony report hearing screams as someone is falling, seeing her fall or looking up to the balcony where a shadowy figure is looking back at them.
The most infamous chapter in its history occurred in the 1930s, when the Crescent Hotel closed down in 1934 when the Great Depression hit the tourism business in full. But there were still people in need of a cure for wellness, but this time, it was a cure for cancer that was offered.
In 1937 it was transformed into a cancer hospital by a charlatan named Norman Baker that is seen in the hotel lobby at times, wearing his signature lavender tie and purple shirt. Baker had a strange background as a vaudeville actor, inventor and was a self made millionaire, running a radio show in Iowa. He had already fled to Mexico from Iowa for a time after practicing without a medical license, but now he was back in America about to start his most horrifying adventure.
He started to claim he had a cure for cancer through his radio show. All five test patients who took the elixir he had made for cancer ended up dead. It was an injectable with a combination of ground-up watermelon seeds, corn silk, clover, water, glycerin, peppermint, and traces of carbolic acid—which he called “Secret Formula Number 5.”
Baker’s fraudulent treatments and the suffering of his patients are said to have left a lingering aura of despair and unrest.
Dr Baker was examining cancer patients in the basement as he was charging their families off all their life savings, making millions of them. A lot of the hotel’s haunted stories come from this time.
At the time on the 3rd floor, they built an annex into the Crescent Hotel that has seen some strange phenomena in later times. Guests seem to have a physical reaction to it, feeling faint and some are even passing out for a moment. It is said to happen very infrequently, sometimes going months and years between each time it happens, sometimes it happens weekly.
Especially in 2019, when archaeologists found hundreds of bottles of Baker’s “secret formula” and jars of bits and pieces he had surgically removed from patients. Dr. Baker wasn’t known to operate on patients though. According to those working there, it looks like something has stirred up some of the paranormal energy that has been lingering and they claim that sightings of ghosts and strange occurrences have become more frequent.
How many died is uncertain, although it is certain he didn’t cure anyone. As many as hundreds of patients died during the time under his care. It wasn’t necessarily the cure that killed them, but it definitely happened because they didn’t do any other treatments. When they did die, Baker would write letters to their families and pretend the patient was still alive.
When they used the old switchboard they used to receive phone calls from the empty basement where the patients agreed to pay for his services. It is also in this basement the ghost of Dr. Baker also has been seen.
Next to the morgue area is the laundry room and a maintenance man saw once all the washers and dryers turn on in the middle of the night. The laundry room still has his autopsy table and walk-in-freezer.
The sound of a gurney being pushed by a nurse wearing all white in what was known as the doctors morgue area in the basement is heard, its squeaking wheels and rattling echoing down the hall. It is only said to happen at 11 in the evening as this is when they used to move the deceased out of the hospital so they could do it discreetly without any of the other patients knowing. The apparition vanishes as soon as they reach the end of the hallway.
The hospital was shut down after a few years though, and he spent a couple of years in prison from 1941 to 1945 before being released. He then lived very comfortably in Florida until he died himself, from cancer in 1958.
One of the rooms that are said to be haunted from this area is the Room 3500 where guests have reported about a lady seemingly wearing what looks like a Victorian nightgown. Today it is one of the hotel’s luxury suites, but back then, it used to be the servants quarter before it was turned into a hospice area for the critically ill cancer patients.
It is said that she is only standing at the foot of your bed and stares at you. Many claim that there are only women that can see her, and if a man is in the room with a woman, he is unaware of her presence.
In room 419, the housekeepers keep seeing the ghost they call Theodora who is constantly seen fumbling with her keys. She introduces herself to them as a cancer patient and vanishes after her greeting.
Those who meet her describe her as a prim and proper older lady. The housekeepers also sometimes happen to find the room tidied up by her before having time to do it themselves, but allegedly only if she enjoys the guests company. She has even been said to have packed the guests’ luggage.
What makes this particular Crescent Hotel more haunted than others? Over 35 000 Paranormal investigators come by almost every year to find out, but there is no conclusive evidence. So much has been discussed though they even have two weekends “Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend” to discuss their findings.
The Crescent Hotel certainly has many people passing by and even passing on, and some of its history, like the part of Dr. Baker, is so awful that it almost makes sense to be haunted.
Some point to it being built in limestone that has a particular ability to absorb and release certain electromagnetic and psychic energies. Both the 18 inch thick walls as well as the very hilltop the hotel is built on is of limestone. There are many examples of this, although plenty of brick and wooden houses that are also said to be haunted.
Some point to the mediums that have come and done a reading of the Crescent Hotel. They claim that the hotel acts like a portal to the other side, most likely because of Dr. Baker’s play with life and death.
In the end, who can really tell. The Crescent Hotel remains a captivating destination for those intrigued by the paranormal.
History of the Crescent Hotel Cats
Ghost Stories – 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa
Ghostly Happenings at the Crescent Hotel
The Haunted Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs – Legends of America
