A new Ghost Adventures season will start Saturday evening with one of the most anticipated lockdowns in the reality show’s history. Zak Bagans and the crew will be seen investigating the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spain Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which made headlines for an oddity unearthing just after the crew left the property. Read More.
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As if tales of ghosts and hauntings at the famous Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs isn’t disturbing enough, a landscaper at the hotel recently discovered something pretty creepy buried on the grounds. It appears they’ve dug up old bottles filled with human body parts.
Among the many tales about the history of the hotel, is one about Norman Baker, a former owner, who they say ran the property as a cancer hospital.
Well, the discovery of the first bottle has led to a full-blown archaeological excavation.
It started when hotel groundskeepers found the first bottle 3 months ago.
“And really didn’t have any idea what was going on, until I picked up the first bottle that had a clear fluid in it, with something in it,” said Crescent Hotel landscaper Susan Benton.
So far, they’ve discovered 500 bottles that point to the stories of Norman Baker using the hotel to treat cancer patients back in the late 1930s.
Hotel ghosts tours manager, Keith Scales says he recognized the bottles from a display.
“We have this displayed in the hotel, where we do the tours, so I see this every day,” Scales said, “Some of the bottles are medicines. Some of the bottles are…medical specimens. What he claimed were tumors that he had taken out of his patients — put in alcohol or formaldehyde and kept in bottles as evidence that his cure was working.”
Although the dig area was considered a dump site, archaeologists say they can tell a lot of thought went into the disposal of these bottles.
“You have these lined walls here that they actually did do hand excavating to actually dig a pit first, said archaeologist Jared Pebworth, “So, they were thinking about how they were going to get rid of their trash instead of just coming up here to the hillside, throwing it down the hillside.”
Archaeologist Michael Evans says they also dug up 16-millimeter film.
“The films in really bad shape… but, we were able to lift a few little images from the film — and one of the images said, after.. before Baker treatment,” said Evans, “It’s a unique find, very exciting.” Archaeologists also found an old bone saw they believe Baker may have used to work on patients.
CHAPTER ONE
On February 5, 2019, while working to extend a parking pad at the north end of the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa’s 15 acres of mountaintop property, a chance discovery was made by the hotel’s landscape gardener, Susan Benson. There in that first scoop of dirt were a couple strange, medical-looking bottles. Knowing part of the hotel’s history that it was once a “cancer curing hospital” in the late 1930s, Benson called the hotel’s ghost tour manager, Keith Scales. Upon his arrival, Scales realized the bottles he was looking at were identical to those that appeared on an advertising poster of the late Norman Baker, the charlatan who operated the hospital.
Careful hand-digging uncovered a few more -even more dynamic- bottles, one of which contained “something” floating in a nearly clear liquid. Again, from what was on the faux doctor’s poster, it was perceived to be what looked like a cancerous tumor that Baker used as a “look what I can do” advertisement for his magical, medicinal albeit false claim of curing cancer. The hotel’s general manager was called.
That call led to a “stop order” on any future digging until archeologists from the nearby University of Arkansas-Fayetteville could offer their advice. That advice included calling the local police (who called the state crime lab) and the local fire department (who called in a hazmat crew). Each gave their okay on moving forward on “the dig”. Fast forward two months…
CHAPTER TWO
On April 9, 2019, team members of the Arkansas Archeology Survey (AAS), part of the University of Arkansas system, arrived from the nearby Fayetteville campus, to begin their meticulous study. They began to carefully peel back layers of dirt and rock. Cutting root clusters as needed, the “find” was slowly uncovered.
With each descending layer of soil, the find became more and more miraculous. AAS team members and hotel management got very excited for the lost dump site for a notorious, infamous charlatan, Norman Baker, who turned the resort hotel into a cancer hospital in the late 1930s, had surprisingly been found.
Baker treated hundreds of people, patients who were grasping at straws trying to be cured of their deadly disease, but no cure ever occurred. He did however extract literally millions of dollars from his endeavor; money scammed from the families and trusting patients of the Cancer Curable Baker Hospital with many of the patients dying at hands of Baker.
All the folklore, all the hair-raising stories, all the rumors were now proving to be true with each and every bottle, medical specimen jar, gruesome surgical tool, etc. as they arose from their 80-year-old grave. Physical remnants of Baker’s Cancer Curable Hospital could now be seen, studied and displayed. The discovery echoed throughout the United States thanks to such news outlets as Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, CNN, and Newsweek, to name just a few.
“What surprised us the most,” said Jack V. Moyer, general manager and vice president of operations of the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, “were several calls from eyewitnesses who remember the ‘Baker years’ and some of whom actually saw these same bottles in the area of the building that Baker used as his morgue and autopsy room. Both of those rooms, which are now a key component of our nightly ghost tours, were stripped bare of artifacts before the current owners came on board in 1997.
“We had been told those artifacts had been taken to the dump. We thought that meant the county’s solid waste dump but low and behold they had been dumped on hotel property.”
Moyer explained that these bottles would become part of a special display in the morgue, adding to the macabre ambiance of the ghost tour and that the bottle burial site itself will be encased and available for viewing on special tours. The planned date for this shocking debut is set for June 1.
“What we wait for now is how this find and the resurrection of these bottles has spiked our paranormal activity,” Moyer concluded. “Already paranormal experts and ghost hunters are waiting to return to ‘America’s Most Haunted Hotel’ to see at what higher level there must be following this bizarre bottle exhumation.”
CHAPTER THREE awaits.
***FRIDAY JANUARY 4TH AND 11TH 2019***
3:00 p.m. CHECK-IN begins at the 1886 Crescent Hotel front desk. SIGN UP at ESP WELCOME TABLE in the Living Café in the Conservatory for:
Please feel free to explore the hotel, check out the CRESCENT COLLEGE HISTORY PROJECT exhibit (4th floor), indulge in the SKYBAR GOURMET PIZZARIA (4th floor) or CRESCENT CONFECTIONS (lobby), find souvenirs at the ESP SUPERNATURAL SUPERMARKET (Living Café) or SERENDIPITY AT THE CRESCENT art gallery (lobby) and visit the NEW MOON SPA (garden level).
The following activities and events will take place beginning at 9:00 p.m. FRIDAY
***SATURDAY JANUARY 5TH AND 12TH 2019*** The Investigation Begins!
SHUTTLE available to the BASIN PARK HOTEL (ask at front desk), but it’s only a five-minute drive if you’d rather take your own car. Parking available on the street.
Tiptoe time! You may continue exploring independently but please be considerate of sleeping guests.
The following INTERACTIVE EXPLORATIONS will take place between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. E.S.P. (Extra-Sensory Perception) manifests in many ways. Some people believe we all possess these faculties, and simply need to locate them within ourselves. Are you in touch with your psychic abilities? ESP!19 provides the opportunity for you to explore your PSI potential. SIGN UP AT THE ESP WELCOME TABLE for:
• TELEPATHY TESTING: Two-person, 15-minute sessions starting at 10:00 a.m. (Governor’s Suite, Room 101 off the lobby, Crescent Hotel)
• REMOTE VIEWING EXPERIMENTS: Time and Place to be announced
• PSYCHOMANTEUM: Open up a conduit to your own mind – – or is it the Other Side? One-person, 15-minute appointments available 2:00 p.m. Saturday, to 2:00 a.m. Sunday. (Norman Baker’s penthouse, room 502.)
• PSYCHIC SALON: three psychics, three kinds of reading. Appointments taken at the Salon. (Lobby) (Not included in your package.)
• PRIVATE SESSIONS with Certified Hypnotist MELANIE BELL: Further information and sign-up at ESP WELCOME TABLE in the Living Café. (Not included with your package.)
***SUNDAY, JANUARY 6TH AND 13TH 2019***
SHUTTLE available to the BASIN PARK HOTEL (ask at front desk), but it’s only a five-minute drive if you’d rather take your own car. Parking available on the street.
Tiptoe time! You may continue exploring independently but please be considerate of sleeping guests.
Noon CHECK-OUT
Farewells and photo-ops.
Built in 1886, the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs has become famous for its ghosts. WATCH 40/29 VIDEO
It’s the month when green forests slowly turn orange, yellow, and red, culminating with ghosts, ghouls, and all things scary.
So it’s only right that the historic 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs is being featured in October on another TV documentary as America’s most haunted hotel. Read More…
At America’s Most Haunted Hotel…
On Halloween, the stars of Eureka Springs’ Intrigue Theater, Sean-Paul and Juliana Fay will be returning to the Crescent Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom for a seance show. This year they will astound their patrons as they witness a seance in an effort to reach some who have “crossed over.” Limited seating!
Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend
January 4, 5, 6 & 11, 12, 13 2021
Book Tickets & Package below.
Eureka Springs Paranormal (ESP) weekend at the 1886 Crescent Hotel has evolved over 
seven years. What began as an opportunity for paranormal investigation groups to explore the active areas at night for one weekend in January, has grown to a two-weekend, two-hotel investigation – and not only of ghosts.
The phrase Extra Sensory Perception refers to the mysterious powers that some people (and maybe all people) possess, that seem to defy the laws of space, time and even logic.
You will have many opportunities to explore your own psychic abilities at ESP19, our interactive weekends – opportunities to share your experiences, feelings, questions, realizations with other companions on the quest. And at night we will be attempting to communicate with those who linger in this hotel long after their bodies are dead and buried.
As part of our Do The Ozarks Halloween series, The Arkansas CW Crew went back this year to the famous haunted hotel The Crescent Hotel. Built in 1886, the first 15 years it served the carriage set and was an exclusive year-round hotel resort. During our tour, we had a chance to go into Theodora’s room, Michael’s room, and the Morgue. Read More…
“America’s Most Haunted Hotel”, the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, is suddenly moving to “world’s most haunted hotel” status thanks to the soon-to-air episode of the Global Photo Association Tokyo, Inc. (GPAUS) program for Fuji Television Network in Japan. The program, “What Is This Mystery” was shot on location at the hotel in May of this year and captured some unexplainable moments.
The founder of Paranormal Inc., Rich Newman of Memphis TN, who has been investigating the paranormal for more than ten years, appears on the program. He shared these experiences with hotel management, “I don’t know if the television crew spoke to you after our night monitoring Theodora’s room (Room 419), but we had quite an exciting night! While monitoring our subject sleeping in that room, several lamps turned themselves on and off. First it was a floor lamp in the couch/TV area. Then it was the nightstand lamp right beside the bed. While we were marveling over the bedside lamp switching on and off, the closet door in the room opened all by itself! What’s better, this all happened on camera!”
The Fuji Tv show makes the sixteenth paranormal program produced featuring the Crescent Hotel in the last dozen years. The most recent is an episode of the Travel Channel’s “Most Terrifying Places in America” which recently debuted.
Some of the most haunting Crescent stories to emerge in 2018 are those recounted the hotel’s ghost tour guides. Here are a few:
> At the conclusion of one of our nightly tours, two ladies -sisters- stopped me to ask a question. The blonde-haired lady asked me why I didn’t introduce the gentleman who was sitting in the rocking chair during my opening remarks in the hotel’s history room where we start each of our tours. I looked at her and told her there was no one sitting in the rocking chair. Her sister laughed and said, “That’s what I told her!” The blonde sister went on to say that he was wearing a three-piece brown suit and a rounded hat, and that he smiled, laughed and rocked all during my opening comments.
> One night in the morgue (which is located in the hotel’s basement, used as such by Norman Baker during the time he operated a ‘cancer curing’ hospital in the Crescent during the late 1930s), I had just brought my tour in and they were beginning to sit in the front area. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man high-stepping into the autopsy room. He wore a dark suit and top hat. I excused myself and went into the room, looked around and even opened the meat locker (where Baker stored cadavers and body parts), but there was no one there. However, I saw him as plain as day. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I had goose bumps.
> While supervising one of my tours, I was standing against the wall across from the SkyBar located on the hotel’s fourth floor when, to my left, I saw an orange-striped tabby cat at the end of the hall. I walked down to that area, looked left and right but there was no cat. I just knew it was Morris, the hotel’s orange-striped tabby cat for 21 years from 1973 to 1994 and is buried -complete with headstone- in the hotel’s East Lawn garden, was paying us another visit! (Note: a cat-like entity is often “felt” in the hotel’s lobby rubbing up against a guest’s leg or jumping into a guest’s lap right below the Morris’ memorial poem and photo.)
> One night this summer, I had a full ghost tour of 24 people seated in the entranceway of the morgue. As I stood up to make my presentation, I heard distinct footsteps in the autopsy room which was just down the short hallway from us. It sounded like someone was pacing back and forth. I had an eerie feeling that it might be a ghost and that I was the only one who was hearing the footsteps. A few seconds later as I was presenting the story of Norman Baker, I noticed that no one on the tour was listening to me; they seemed distracted. So, I paused and asked the group, “Do you hear footsteps?” They all nodded in unison.
While the Crescent’s ghost tour guides capture many stories, guests are also encouraged to submit experiential stories and photos on the “America’s Most Haunted Hotel” Facebook page. Many of these photos include orbs that paranormal theorists contend contain the energy of one or more ghosts or entities. Here is one such account:
>I captured a lot of different orbs on my phone’s camera but I had one orb, seen by my naked eye, basically like kind of attack me. It came from across the room down in the morgue and zig-zagged at me then flew behind me. It made me feel very uncomfortable, plus I got super cold. A few seconds later, it appeared again, coming from behind me, traveling back across the room straight at me. However, this second time, it stopped and was just like hovering in front of me as if it were checking me out, eventually disappearing. What they say about the morgue being (paranormally) active is true indeed.
“The best thing about our mountaintop spa resort is that it is a Historic Hotel of America best known for weddings, romance travel, and a family gathering place,” explained Bill Ott, the hotel’s director of communications. “And, oh by the way, the 1886 Crescent Hotel is also said to have ghosts or what we like to call, ‘guests who check out but never leave’. Our haunted persona is just another avenue for creating lifetime memories.”