A number of rooms are haunted in this historic hotel. Room 218 is the spot where Michael, an Irish stonemason, landed when he fell from the hotel's roof during construction. His ghost is said to bang on the walls and turn the lights and television on and off. Rooms 202 and 424 are also said to be haunted.
Outside of the Recreation Room, the ghost of Dr. Norman Baker often appears, looking a bit confused. He ran a controversial hospital and health resort in the building during the 1930s. A nurse, dressed in a white uniform, has been seen on the third floor. A woman in Room 419 introduces herself as a cancer patient to guests and housekeepers, then vanishes. Also roaming the grounds is a gentleman in Victorian clothing who haunts the lobby, the confused ghost of Doctor Baker (who ran the facility in the 1930s when it was a hospital/health spa), and the ghost of a nurse dressed in white who wanders the entire hotel.
Guests have reported sightings and other odd happenings in a number of guest rooms, the lobby, dining room and the grounds of this great historic hotel in Haunted Eureka Springs.
You don't need to stay in a haunted room to see a real ghost at the Crescent Hotel. Outside of the Recreation Room, the ghost of Dr. Norman Baker often appears, looking a bit confused. He ran a controversial hospital and health resort in the building during the 1930s. Many people believe honestly that the spring water that flows underneath the hotel is high in energy and it attracts ghostly apparitions. Is this just a publicity gimmick to help a failing hotel? It could be, but actually the hotel was starting to do well before the ghosts were sighted.
The Crystal Dining Room of the Crescent Hotel is particularly active, and many spirits in Victorian garb hve been spotted there at the tables or in the mirrors. Once, at Christmastime, the staff reported leaving a Christmas tree and presents at one end of the locked and empty Crystal Dining Room. Upon their return, the staff found the tree and presents moved to the other end of the room, and chairs facing the tree in a semi-circle.
The 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa has a rich and fascinating history. Read about some of the earliest accounts from these stories taken from the Eureka Springs Times Echo, one of Eureka Springs' early newspapers which is still in existence today and some fascinating information on Dr. Norman Baker, one time owner of the Crescent Hotel who ran a "Cancer Hospital" in his "Castle in the Air".
The hotel was designed by the architect Isaac L. Taylor in 1886.It was used as a hotel for several years before it could no longer sustain itself financially.
In 1908, the hotel was opened as the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women. Soon it couldn't afford to stay open as a school either. The school closed in 1924 and then reopened from 1930 to 1934 as a junior college.
The Crescent was leased as a summer hotel after the school closed. In 1937, it got a new owner. Norman Baker turned the place into a hospital and health resort. Baker was an inventor and had made millions of dollars by 1934. Baker wasn't happy just inventing things because he thought of himself as a doctor (even though he had no medical training). He claimed to have discovered a number of "cures" for various ailments, including cancer. He was sure that organized medicine was conspiring against him. He had recently been run out of Iowa for practicing medicine without a license.
Baker moved his cancer patients to Arkansas and he advertised the health resort. The "cure" was basically drinking the natural spring water. No one was really harmed by this, but it wasn't really the advertised "miracle cure". Federal charges were filed against him for mail fraud and he spent four years in prison. The Crescent Hotel was left ownerless.
The hotel stayed closed until 1946 when new investors took it over and began trying to restore this odd and historical piece of Ozark history.