THE HAUNTED CRESCENT HOTEL

I'll never forget the first time I saw the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It was in 1967, I was just a kid and we drove to Arkansas to see the 'Christ of the Ozarks'. The more than 67 foot tall statue sits atop Magnetic Mountain overlookin' the Victorian town of Eureka Springs. It is in the park of the amphitheater of the 'Great Passion Play'. My mom had been wantin' to go see the statue since they had erected it the year before.


Now, as impressive as the statue is, I only had eyes for one thing. The Crescent Hotel. The mountain we were on top of was above the town but on the next mountain over sat this huge buildin' that looked like somethin' out of a movie. I remember askin' my Dad a million questions about the hotel and I begged for us to drive over to it so I could check it out. I was told maybe another time. I never forgot it.

This is an old picture taken when it was first built. Pretty impressive, huh? Especially sittin' out in the middle of Hillbilly Land, USA.

I think this is probably what it looked like when I saw it in the '60's.

This is a view of it today lookin' from the mountain 'The Christ of the Ozarks' sits on.

This is a current photo of the 'Grand Old Lady of the Ozarks'.

She has 78 guest rooms, a 4th floor bar with a balcony, a ballroom, crystal dining room, and many other rooms such as a rec room. Oh, and yes, a morgue.

And she's haunted.

She's touted as bein' 'America's Most Haunted Hotel'.
The Sci-Fi channel's Ghost Hunters has an episode where they visited her, and they got some ghostly apparition on film.

Before any of this ghost stuff was talked about, my husband and I stayed at the Crescent in 1979, my first visit. It was beautiful. I love old places and the Crescent did not disappoint me. There was a little room off of the front entryway that held the museum of the hotel with pictures galore. It told how it was built from 1884 to 1886 by the Eureka Springs Improvement Company and Frisco Railroad.

The first 15 years it was an exclusive year round resort hotel caterin' to the rich and famous. People traveled from all over the country to take in the waters from the town's natural springs, to hopefully ease and cure ailments. Business boomed from 1902 to 1907, but the latter part of 1907, the hotel closed when the waters were found to not have curative powers and the springs lost the interest of the wealthier class. The next 60 years were not good ones for the Crescent.

In 1908 the hotel opened as a college for young women. After the school closed in the 1920's, the hotel was reopened as a Summer resort.

In 1937, the hotel was turned into a cancer hospital. I remember sayin' to my husband, "Ooooo, I bet this place has some ghosts. Can you imagine how many people have died here?"

The hospital closed, in 1940, after it was discovered that the doctor who opened it was practicin' without a license.

The Crescent Hotel reopened in 1946 and has slowly been restored through out the years by various owners.

We have stayed at the Crescent six times through the years, sometimes goin' by ourselves or with friends and family. One particular time we went with my brother and sister-in-law. We stayed in connectin' rooms and sat up half the night playin' cards and havin' a blast.
About 3 o'clock in the mornin', SIL and I decided we had the munchies and were goin ' to go to the lobby and hit a vendin' machine we had seen earlier. We had rooms on the second floor, and as we're walkin' down the hallway I'm tellin' SIL the history on the place, about it bein' a girls school and one of the girls supposedly hangin' herself (I was tryin' to scare SIL, and it was workin'). I told her it had been a cancer hospital and LOT'S of people had died there. When we got to the lobby there was one young guy workin' the desk, we said hi and went on to get our goodies.

Now this place is totally quiet. Nothin' goin' on anywhere. No other people about. We're back on the second floor headin' to our room at the opposite end of the place, I bring back up all the ghosts who must inhabit the place. About this time, directly behind us is this noise. I don't know how to describe it except it was like an evil ugly monster makin' some kind of unearthly sound.

My SIL and I both let out blood curdlin' screams. I mean BLOOD CURDLIN', and we ran, both of us screamin' down the hall to our room. About the time we get to the door, we're hearin' my husband laughin' his _ _ _ off. He was the monster in the hall. About 10 minutes later, after I finish beatin' on my husband, we looked out into the hallway. No one was up and about, no cute guy workin' the desk upstairs checkin' on us, nothin'. Now I know there had to be some people sittin' straight up in their beds . I happen to believe this is when all the ghost stories started. hee hee

Now when you stay at the Crescent Hotel they give you the option of takin' their haunted tours. The rooms of 218, 202, 424 and 419 are suppose to be their most haunted. There is suppose to be a nurse who walks the hallways and a cancer patient who introduces herself to guests and housekeepers. I think that most of the hauntin's are suppose to be connected to the cancer hospital period of the hotel. The man who operated it was evil, they now know. Some say he did experiments on poor sick people sufferin' from cancer.

There are legends of dozens of human skeletons secreted in the walls somewhere within the place and jars of preserved body parts. These have never been found.

I haven't been there in a few years and when I stayed there last the haunted tours were not offered. I had a friend and her husband take the tour but nothin' happened. You get to take the tour around midnight to add to the spookiness.

Would I stay at the Crescent again after hearin' about all of the ghost activity. You betcha, in a minute. I love the place. And hey I figure, as loud as my SIL and I screamed that night, we probably scared some ghosts. I have some pictures I took years ago and when I dig them out I'll post 'em. But it may be a while, they are really packed away.

They say whatever the reason for the strange happinin's, the Crescent Hotel remains one of the South's most visited spots.

It also remains haunted.

Rebel