Live-In Entities of the Crescent Hotel – Why the Grand Old Lady Never Sleeps
Live-In Entities of the Crescent Hotel – Why the Grand Old Lady Never SleepsEditor Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Interesting occurrences have filled the century of one Victorian hotel in the most ethereal fashion. Guests clothes have been scattered in the night, doors open and latches lock and figures dressed from another time grace the halls and then fade away. They are not particularly silent in their presence and they can be even somewhat rowdy in their need to be acknowledged. These are the legendary and documented repeated sightings in the historic 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Eureka Springs is not unaccustomed to the attention it has received for decades pertaining to entity co-habitation. This charming Victorian community of artists and craftsman has dedicated its reputation to the unusual and remains very open to the awareness of the presence of astral plane phenomena. Historians and astrologers alike agree something is going on here and that the 1886 Crescent Hotel is probably the most active dwelling of them all.
The Crescent’s long and sordid history lends the perfect backdrop for astral occurrences.
It is said that after construction had framed in the skeleton of the hotel in the 1880’s, one of the Irish stone masons plunged to his death and died on impact in what is now room 218. That room proves to be the most active room in the hotel and has attracted TV crews for decades due to the quantity and quality of the sightings reported. Throughout the life of the hotel employees have referred to this entity as “Michael” a classified poltergeist due to the nature of the activity. Room 218 has allowed guests to witness hands coming out of the bathroom mirror, cries of a falling man in the ceiling, the door opening then slamming, unable to open. The intrigue of all this activity has drawn guests to rent room 218 just for the chance of seeing something.
By the 1930’s, the Crescent Hotel went from a luxury destination to an experimental cancer hospital opened by a man who marketed himself as a licensed physician while examining bodies in the Crescent’s basement and taking unsuspecting families for their savings. “Dr.” Norman Baker possessed a distinctive style and has been documented to have been sighted repeatedly in the Crescent lobby by previous owners and guests who all described a man in a purple shirt and white linen suit known later through photographs to have been the infamous > entrepreneur.
“ The nurse pushing the gurney” has not only been seen frequently and recently, but heard. This entity resides in Dr. Baker’s old morgue area under the hotel, and is known to squeak and rattle down the hall past offices and occasionally in upper hallways.
Housekeepers and workman have reported a meeting near room 419 with “Theodora,” an entity that introduces itself as a cancer patient of Dr. Baker’s, is seen and then vanishes after courtesies are verbally exchanged.
Because of the physical evidence left behind, the “clothes thrower” can be most fascinating to the skeptical. Guests have hesitantly reported to the concierge that they woke up to their clothes strewn about in their room. The hotel does apologize for any inconvenience though rarely if ever have the guests ever complained, they are in fact more intrigued once they realize what could be occurring.
Throughout the hotel’s history a formally dressed entity has descended the main stairway pulling on his gloves as if to attend the nightly ball that was held in the hotel’s legendary Crystal Dining Room in the 1880’s. The descriptions are now thought to match that of Dr. Ellis, the physician for the Crescent Hotel who maintained an office in what is now room 212.
“The Lady in White”, has been the name coined for decades for a mournful entity seen floating through the gardens and on the > balconies.
In the last decade, the documented sightings by employees and recent guests is worth noting especially since many of these people were admitted disbelievers and/or knew nothing of the hauntings at the Crescent at the time of their sighting. A front desk manager and bookkeeper for the hotel was able to share a number of incidents that have occurred during her employment.
She was greeted once with “Good morning” while passing through a hallway to her office beneath the first floor where no form was present and no windows or doors exist that would allow sound to pass through from the outside.
Christmas decorations on the fireplace mantle in the lobby were seen "thrown off at once,” as if a board had been placed behind everything and then pushed forward ”.
A previous maintenance man for the hotel refused to ever go back into the laundry area under the hotel after witnessing all the washers and dryers come on in the middle of the night with no other staff on duty except him. The laundry room is located next to Dr. Baker’s old morgue which still has his autopsy table and walk-in freezer for bodies right where Dr. Baker left them.
The hotel concierge was approached recently by a woman staying in room 230 who was visibly shaken. The woman preempted by saying that she does not believe in ghosts but that she had had the most unusual experience at 5 o'clock that morning. Apparently she opened her eyes to a mustached man in a dress coat and rounded collar with a bottle in his hand, standing at the foot of the bed looking back and forth at her and her husband. She went on to say that she closed her eyes and reopened them thinking she might be dreaming but when she opened her eyes once again he was still visible. As she awoke her husband, she watched as this form faded from the bottom up leaving his gazing face as her last impression.
The concierge referred her to page ninety-four in a book sold on the Crescent Hotel and read a matching description of an entity documented thirty years ago; a book this woman had never seen.
Because of the enormous activity at the 1886 Crescent Hotel, Ken Fugate and Carroll Heath of Eureka Springs, have made it their business to investigate this repeated phenomena and host ghost tours throughout the 72-room hotel. Trained psychics and members of the International Ghost Hunters Society, Ken and Carroll pride themselves in offering an experience to visitors without the props of a showman or the sensational lingo. “We prefer to give straight information without the drama that many people use as a distraction. As trained clairvoyants, we take our sensitivity as well as other’s to psychic phenomena, very seriously.”
The 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa, once touted “The Grand Old Lady of The Ozarks,” surely must lie awake at night as a sentinel for both her visitors of the day as well as her inhabitants of the paranormal kind.
For more information one may contact Mr. Jack Moyer, general manager, by writing The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, 75 Prospect Avenue, Eureka Springs, AR 72632, or by phone at 800-342-9766. The hotel’s web page address is www.crescent-hotel.com .