Hello! I stayed at the Crescent for the first time last summer, and will be back in April. I was skeptical of the ghost stories, but let me tell you… My friend, her brother, and I walked the grounds late at night to explore and take pics.

About midnight we were walking down a hallway that I shall leave undisclosed, and noticed a light over the door and heard the distinct sound of tools being dropped on a plywood surface, along with a grumbling male voice. As we reached the door it stopped. Her brother peaked over the door, but saw nothing. We checked the knob and it was not locked. As the door was being opened, I snapped a pic.

There is a large face with a bowler-type hat floating over the person opening the door. It is out of proportion to any person present at the time. I also have a pic of my friend in front of room 218 with a fairly large football-shaped orb present.

We stayed in room 216, and I awoke to the sound of a person in a dress walking through the room very quickly, and the sound of the main door squeaking open and closed. I didn’t realize what the noise was until we opened the door to leave for breakfast, and it was exactly the same.

Also, the most amazing, was when I attempted to take a pic of room 218 with my lens under the door (large enough gap). The camera lens retracted and then shut off by itself not once, not twice, but TWELVE times! It was 1am, and I thought I was doing something wrong or pushing the wrong button, but not twelve times! The history, beauty, charm, and the uncanny events all roll into a very enchanting visit.

Thank you for the wonderful service. My dear friend and I took a little vacation and stayed the night of July 11th in room 213. We thought it would be fun to take the ghost tour after a day of shopping.

When we checked into our room we were joking about welcoming ghosts everywhere but the bathroom. Within 30 minutes of being in the room, I went to the bathroom to freshen up my make-up before going to the Crystal Dining Room for a fabulous dinner. I heard someone (I thought my friend) tap her finger nails on the door.

I turned around and found my make-up bag moving side to side on the hook on the back of the door. I just thought the tapping on the door caused the movement.

I answered “yes” and Jane didn’t reply. I then opened the door and saw her over by her bed and then I asked her if she heard that or had knocked on the door. She of course replied “no”.

I guess by the look on my face, she could see my shock. I eventually told her what had happened as I fought back the tears. We eventually laughed it off and then it was her turn to freshen up.

Again, she retreated from the bathroom a bit white. She said, “Tracey, your make-up bag hasn’t quit moving the entire time I’ve been in there.” We left the room, not discussing it and even kept quiet about the situation until midway through the ghost tour. Other than a lot of orbs in the digital camera, and Jane smelling cigar smoke in the basement, it was pretty uneventful.

Oh, my make-up bag never moved again, not that night or the next day. I guess, be careful what you say and what you truly don’t want to see. We’re planning on returning for a “girls weekend” next year. Our husbands have no interest in joining us or the guests in the rooms. Ha!

“To stay or not to stay” was the question on our minds when we visited the Crescent Hotel on Sunday August 22nd. We had wanted to see this grand hotel since we moved to Arkansas roughly a year ago from California.

We, both being history and antique buffs, thought it would be a nice experience to stay at this historical place. We found out that it would be more memorable than we could have ever imagined or planned. No apparitions, orbs in photo’s or thumping headboards, no we had to get a ghost or spirit with a sense of humor.

Strange occurrences began happening a couple of weeks prior to our stay. We planned on staying at the Crescent for our anniversary. Valerie had made reservations for the weekend,; meanwhile I researched the hotels history on the Internet. From reading articles on hauntings at the hotel we ruled out certain rooms that were commonly known to have ghostly activity.

Later when reading stories regarding the dark days of the hotel with Norman Baker and the victims of his Cancer clinic and so called resort; we decided not to stay and Valerie called to cancel the reservations. This is where the strangeness begins.

When my wife called to cancel our reservations, the front desk commented that it had already been canceled. This was strange due to the fact that neither one of us had called earlier. We just thought “oh well, guess the ghosts knew that we were not coming” We joked about it and even told friends and coworkers for a laugh.

You see, we had decided to not stay at the hotel, as we have had ghost experiences prior in California as well as Arkansas. We thought that we wanted to rest and have an enjoyable time on our trip. I don’t consider interactions with spirits or ghost to be very restful. Seems like since they are restless, they like to pass it on to us.

Later in the month we decided to take a trip to Eureka Springs from our residence in the Bentonville area. We thought we’d stop off first at the Crescent Hotel prior to antique hopping and give it a look and feel. Valerie agreed that if I felt good about the hotel we’d stay the evening.

We walked around a bit and decided to make reservations for the evening, still making sure to avoid rooms 218, 202, 820 and 424, just to be safe. We got room 221, just down the hall from 218 where a worker apparently fell to his death during construction, apparently haunts. We thought it strange to be near this room, but thought that the spirit might be a homebody and keep to his room. Now we think that he might have gotten a little bored and wandered. Down the hall to our room.

We were too early for check in, so we took a spin around town, came back to the hotel and had a nice dinner in the hotel dinning room. Later we took photos of the lobby and said haunted areas, hoping to get some ghostly images on the pictures and even joked around about the hauntings. In the room while jesting about ghosts she finally got tired and asked me to stop, so I did, as any fine “and smart” husband would do.

Our room, 223, seemed peaceful and had a great view. We watched some TV, my wife carefully avoiding the X-Files, and retired for the evening, with the bathroom light on of course. Valerie had a hard time sleeping, as she does in unfamiliar rooms and later turned off the light. I, like normal slept like a baby.

We awoke the next morning to the alarm clock as to not miss the breakfast. While in the bathroom she asked me if I had done something to the towels. I peeked around the door from the closet and observed that the two bathing towels that were hanging on the rack had been tied around with the smaller hand towels to form a knot, with a washcloth lying atop both towels.

The bathroom had been noticeably rearranged from the night before and items had been moved around. In addition, the garbage can that had been just under the sink had been moved inside the tub. Also our toothbrushes had been neatly tucked into the towel on the back of the toilet and toothpaste laid beside. My black t-shirt had moved from the edge of the tub to the shower curtain rail, hand towels moved from the sink to the edge of the tub.

We of course questioned weather the other had done this and thinking that the other one had played a joke. Neither one of us had, so we laughed and took photos for family to see and realized that the joking the night before might have made a ghost or spirit play a prank on us. Wow! That really capped off our weekend! Undeniably these things do happen. Though I have had experiences in the past that most people have never seen, I had never seen a poltergeist haunting like this.

Later we shared the experience with staff in the dinning room, the front desk and Linda Mock, the Concierge. She asked that we write up the experience and send photos; So here they are. Think what you will as we know many will be skeptical, even friends and family.

We know what we have seen and will laugh about it for years to come. You may ask if we will spend the night again at the Crescent Hotel? Why yes of course, but most likely not in the same room, as we have added one more room to our list of rooms not to hang a hat in.

Being a businessman, and thinking of the best interest for the hotel owners, I think that the ghosts should pay for their own keep. No free room and board here. The staff should train them to launder the towels and clean the toilets too. It’s the least they can do since they’re just hanging around and annoying the guest. And no tying the towel in knots! Rather, this should evoke banishment from the premises. Bad ghosty! No dinner.

Hello from Ridgeland, MS, My name is Shelia Bowden. My husband John and I spent our honeymoon at the Crescent Hotel 25 years ago. Our anniversary was August 18. We’re planning a return trip to your area at the end of October. I have all our original receipts from your hotel. I am especially interested in your Ghost Tours.

You see, we had a ghostly experience while there on our honeymoon. We told our families about it when we got back home. A few months after that, my sister-in-law read a newspaper article about the different ghosts that inhabit the Crescent.

We enjoyed our stay there immensely, but John says he doesn’t want to spend the night there again. (The “spirit” kept trying to shove him out of the bed one night!)

We can hardly wait until we get back to your wonderful area. We love to visit the Ozarks. We watched a show on HGTV in the past that told about the restoration project. I was so happy to hear that it continues to be so well taken care of.

I fell in love with the Crescent Hotel as a child. My dad heard about it, and on one of our many family vacations to the Ozarks we came to stay there. We came back many times and brought other family members with us as well. It was always my favorite place to go. That’s why John and I chose it for our honeymoon.

I’ve always wanted to see the Ozarks in the fall, just never had the chance with family obligations. So now in celebration of our silver anniversary we are making the time to come!

This summer my husband & I went on the ghost tour, my husband was very skeptical until we went on the historic tour a few days before and we stopped at the hotel and got out to look around, my husband went down stairs where the spa is and went into the restroom where he said he saw a man standing by the sink.

Then the night of the tour we all went down into what used to be the morgue and then he felt what our guide called “Raymond” touch his hair and as he was walking around snapping pictures he said something touched his leg. I feel there is something there without a doubt.

My sister and daughter and myself and a friend stayed at the Crescent June of 2004. We were very excited about staying there.

The first night was uneventful… but the second night was quite different. I kept hearing noises, someone walking around the room, and the curtains kept swaying back and forth.

I made the comment OMG if there is anyone in here will ya just do something. Well, the covers at the end of my bed were suddenly just jerked off my feet. I was so startled I jumped up out of bed got dressed and went downstairs and stayed there till almost daylight. I do agree this hotel has many haunts… MANY!!

I had taken the ghost tour a year before and got many orbs in the pictures. I don’t know if I will stay there again but its a distinct possibility. This hotel has got a great history… a lot of it still lives there.

I took my mother, sister and niece for 2 nights stay in June-03. We had all day pampering in The New Moon Spa.

My sister was being tormented by some ghost or something that was scaring the life out of her. She would not finish her hydrotherapy bath because of the eerie feeling she was getting in the dark, candlelit room.

We all went to the dinning room to eat breakfast and as we were leaving, the latch in the floor that was holding the door open came up, then the door slammed hard, right in her face.

She shared a room with my cousin and woke up having the most horrible nightmares, then she said someone got into bed with her. She thought it was my niece and then soon realized it wasn’t! She ran over to my niece’s bed and crawled into bed with her.

Then, I was out walking around the grounds just at sun rise, taking pictures. I was down at the bottom of the castle, on the road right in front of the entrance to the catholic church. I was taking some great pictures and took one of the back of the castle there. When I got my film developed there was a flash of light in the third floor suite window. The room right across the hall from where my mother and I were staying!

My Daughter and I stayed a couple of nights at the Crescent Hotel, November 6th & 7th 2003. We had heard the rumors of ghosts but we were unaware of any details.

We did not have any spooky experiences while staying at the hotel, at least that we knew of. I had brought my camera and took a couple of shots of our room, and a few more around town.

Our room # 313, had a door to the balcony and I wanted to have the doorway in the picture so the curtains were open. A couple of days after we got home I printed the pictures off our computer and got a surprise.

Peering through the middle pane of glass on the door was a ghostly image. You can very clearly see the eyes and mouth of the specter. We did not stay in the Hotel looking for ghosts, we just wanted to experience a little of the history. I think we got more than we bargained for.

My husband and I always stay in your hotel. We once stayed in room 223. That night, we became fascinated with a loud banging noise coming from what we now know to be the annex.

We ignored it for a little while and then decided it was time to investigate. We opened our door and walked out into the hallway. We turned the corner and looked down the other side of the hall and realized that the noise was coming from a spooky, dark entrance.

As we walked down the couple of steps into the annex, the banging got louder. We paused for a moment and I remember whispering to Scott (my husband) Who or what would be making all of that noise at this hour in the dark. We walked further down the hall.

It was difficult to see so we kind of felt our way around. All we could feel were doors with padlocks on them. Then the banging stopped then we heard footsteps stomping towards us, we ran as fast as we could back up the hall I was literally screaming my head off because the stomping was right behind me. We ran in our room and quickly shut the door.

We were attracted to the idea of what had happened. We have strange balls of light flying around us on our video camera footage. We love to have people over and show them.

One year we stayed in the governors suite (which as you know has 2 rooms, a parlor and and little hallway entrance). Our friends slept in the blue room and we chose the pink room.

We awoke to our door opening and closing. Thinking that our friends were trying to pull a stunt. We quickly got out of bed, tiptoed over to the other door that leads into the parlor so that we could catch them in the entrance messing with our other door. We jumped into the entrance and yelled “got ya!” We instantly turned pale and looked at each other as our door continued to slowly open all by itself.

We grabbed our video camera to film and it stopped. We thought great! No one is going to believe us! But, when we turned the video camera on and filmed the entrance we got excited again. The lights in the entrance were flickering and fluttering! You could not see this with your own eyes you could only see the lights flutter through the camera lens! Almost as if it were electrical impulses.

My Wife, my Daughter and I stayed at the Basin Park on Sunday Night May 26th and Monday Night May 27th. We went to visit the Crescent of course being the sister of the Basin Park.

I have to tell you that people who don’t believe in Ghost have not been to the Crescent. It was raining really hard the night we drove up there from the Basin Park, so we decided to hang around a bit since the weather wasn’t cooperating.

We had taken the little tour train earlier that day and were aware that the place was haunted. We sat outside when it was raining lightly on the back porch facing the Christ of the Ozarks Statue. I had a feeling that someone was watching us the whole time.

We then went up to the 2nd Floor and took some pictures in the hall and the door of room 218. Well lo and behold we got our pictures back and we have a little light in one of our pictures that resembles the pictures everyone has seen of ghost and on the 2nd floor the curtain at the end of the hall was turned back and when we took this picture it was not like this. By the way the picture we took of the door on room 218 never came out.