Crescent Hotel (Eureka Springs, Arkansas)

Crescent Hotel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, circa 1886

The Crescent Hotel is a historic hotel at 75 Prospect Avenue in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It has a reputation as one of the most haunted buildings in the United States and offers a Ghost Tour for a fee. The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

History

The Crescent Hotel was built in 1886 as a resort for the rich and famous, but quickly became unmanageable and fell into disrepair. In 1908, it was reopened as the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women. This institution closed down in 1924, and then opened again in 1930 as a junior college. After the college closed in 1934, the Crescent was leased as a summer hotel.

In 1937, it got a new owner, Norman G. Baker, who turned the place into a hospital and health resort. Baker, a millionaire inventor and radio personality, styled himself as a doctor, despite having had no medical training. He claimed to have discovered a number of "cures" for various ailments, including cancer, and launched frequent attacks on organized medicine, which he accused of being corrupt and profit-driven.

Having been run out of Iowa for practicing medicine without a license, Baker moved his cancer patients to Arkansas and advertised his new health resort at the Crescent. His "cure" consisted primarily of drinking the area's natural spring water. In 1940, federal charges were filed against Baker for mail fraud and he spent four years in prison. The Crescent Hotel was left ownerless until 1946. In the spring of 1946, the Crescent Hotel was purchased by John R. Constantine, Herbert E. Shutter, Herbert Byfield, and Dwight Nichols. On March 15, 1967, the hotel was nearly burned to the ground. The only living owner at this time was Dwight Nichols.

In 1997, the Crescent Hotel was purchased by Marty and Elise Roenigk, who oversaw a six-year restoration and renovation of the hotel rooms. Marty Roenigk died in a car crash on June 18, 2009; Elise Roenigk remains the hotel's current owner.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Ghosts

The Crescent Hotel has been called "America's Most Haunted Hotel", and is said to be haunted by at least eight spirits. These include: Michael, a 17 year old Irish stonemason, who lost his footing while doing stonework on the hotel roof during its construction and accidentally fell to his death into what is now room 218; a man in a hat and tails, believed to be the ghost of Dr. John Freemont Ellis, a staff doctor at the original Crescent Hotel resort in the late 1800s; a little girl who, left unattended, climbs between the 4th floor banisters and fell to her death at basement level; a young woman who attended the Crescent College & Conservatory (an off season college for young women from well-to-do families), who is said to have either jumped to her death from the fourth floor or was pushed; a nurse who worked in the building when it was a hospital; Breckie, the young son of nurse Mary Breckinridge (founder of Frontier Nursing University) and Ryan Richard Thompson, president of the Crescent College & Conservatory (an off season college for young women from well to do families), who died of complications from appendicitis; Theadora, believed to be Dr. Baker's head nurse, who had the room below Dr. Baker's suite; a ghostly bearded gentleman wearing Victorian clothing and a top hat; and Norman G. Baker himself.

In 2005, the hotel was visited by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, presenters of the television show Ghost Hunters. Wilson recorded a full-body apparition on their thermal imaging camera; the form seemed to be that of a man wearing a hat and nodding his head.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Carroll County, Arkansas

External links

• Official website