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Episode 68: Spooky Eureka Springs
629 Plays2 years ago
Welcome back Witches! You know we love us a spoOooOoky episode, so this week we're taking you through all the spookiness surrounding Eureka Springs, Arkansas!! So get in losers and get creeped out by a Spooky Eureka Springs episode.
We would be forever thankful if you left our podcast a 5-Star review. If you really loved the show and want more Get in Loser content, check out our Supercast & Buy Me a Coffee links below. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @GetinWitches, on TikTok @weredoingwitchcraft, or email us at weredoingwitchcraft@gmail.com. You can support our show through our links below.
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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio- The Witch
References
- DenHoed, Andrea. The Haunting History of a Huckster’s “Cancer Cure.” (2020). The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-haunting-history-of-a-hucksters-cancer-cure
- Flaxman, Larry. 1886 Crescent Hotel. https://larryflaxman.com/1886-crescent-hotel/
- Crescent Hotel’s website- https://crescent-hotel.com/
- Basin Park Hotel’s Website- https://basinpark.com/things-to-do/paranormal-investigation/
- https://www.eurekasprings.com/historical/eurekavictorian.html
- https://basinpark.com/about/history/
- https://www.tripadvisor.com/FAQ_Answers-g31582-d76935-t186980-Which_rooms_are_thought_to_be_most_haunted.html
- http://www.eureka--springs.com/basin%20park%20hotel.htm
- https://stayeurekasprings.com/ellis-house-3/
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Transcript
Introduction and Trip Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft in the occult but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey. Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we have learned about the craft. So get in witches as we take another spooky trip this time to Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
00:00:35
Speaker
So.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I have to say before we start the episode, I want to give a shout out to one of our listeners who is also a really good friend of mine, Gina. I'm going to post pictures of what she sent on our Instagram, but she, like I got the best surprise today and it literally made me cry, but like she, um, I don't even know what it's called. Is it called cross stitch?
00:01:09
Speaker
cross stitch. I don't even know the technique, but she sent me these beautiful cross stitch
00:01:19
Speaker
I don't even know like just perfect things and they're all like they're witchy but they're like understated witchy like not like in your face. I'm a witch like witchiness. They're just perfect and like such a thoughtful amazing gift and very thoughtful and so pretty. Yeah, I'm obsessed with them.
00:01:41
Speaker
Me too. I'm just like, I told her, I said, I want to hang them somewhere in my house where I can look at them all the time. And someone put in our book nook that we are meeting downstairs. So I'm really excited. So thank you so much, Gina. I am obsessed with them already. Yes. They're beautiful. I've only seen pictures of them, not in person. I bet they're even prettier in person. They're so pretty. They're so beautiful. Love it. Yeah.
Eureka Springs: Haunted History and Personal Stories
00:02:10
Speaker
But anyways, what are we talking about? I'm so excited for this topic. We are talking about Eureka Springs, Arkansas and all of its spooky, spooky history. Yes. And present day spookiness. I'm really excited about this episode. Like just
00:02:28
Speaker
I remember when we were first talking about it as a spooky destination place. I remember being like, okay, well, I feel like maybe the only thing that's going to be worth talking about is the Crescent Hotel. And so I'm like, if that's the case, I'll cover a different city nearby or something like that that might also be spooky. But then researching, I'm like, oh, there's so much to talk about. There's so much.
00:02:53
Speaker
tragedy and death and just outright awfulness about places in Eureka Springs. And then as somebody who's gone and been there and done a bunch of the stuff there, that place is fucking haunted. Without a question, that is one of the most haunted places I've stayed in. I went with Julia, one of my best friends, and
00:03:18
Speaker
we had a time. Yeah, quite the time. And I'll talk about some of that later. But I cannot wait to hear it again. Like, so listeners, I've already heard some of these stories. I'm sure I haven't read everything. But I have heard some of these stories and they were freaky as fuck. So just get ready. Because when she talks about it, it's kind of it is a little bit gross. It is so creepy.
00:03:44
Speaker
Oh, we yeah. One like what's wild is like obviously we went and stayed at the Crescent for a night. It's a little pricey to stay like a full weekend so we stayed for a night we did like you know the whatever you're supposed to do the ghost tours and
00:03:59
Speaker
art, like some of the stuff that happened there was freaking weird and creepy and just makes your skin crawl. And then like the place that I think we experienced the most stuff was just an Airbnb. Like we had rented this like little Airbnb house and we had a wild couple of days. Hope you guys are ready for some of that. It's about to be popping.
00:04:27
Speaker
And also, if you are a listener who has been to Eureka Springs, or you live in Eureka Springs, or you live near it, and you've had experiences, let us know because we love to be freaked out and creeped out and scared by things like this. Also, I'd like to know that other people have also had these experiences because they were not
00:04:50
Speaker
They were not the vibe. They were not a great time, but they made for great stories. Right.
The Origin and Rebuilding of Eureka Springs
00:04:59
Speaker
So a little bit like how this episode is kind of structured is I'm going to go into some of the history, some of the little things about the town that make it really unique and add to the hauntedness of it. And then Tiffany's going to take it from there.
00:05:16
Speaker
and we're going to explore The Crescent Hotel and all of her amazing experiences that I can't wait to hear about because they were perfect and sweet. I want to preface The Crescent with, it's like if you look it up, right, you Google The Crescent, it comes up as like the most haunted hotel in America. Yeah. I want to know how they get that, like how do you get that title? Because I feel like
00:05:40
Speaker
you hear that about the one in Colorado, it's the most haunted hotel in America. Like, which one is actually the most haunted? Like, how do we get to this place? But I will say this bitch is definitely haunted. I feel like and, you know, we'll get into it with the history and stuff. But the fact that like,
00:06:00
Speaker
You know, they say this stuff about Alton too, like how it's, it's really haunted because of its ties to the water and ties to like the hot springs that are there. And then like Eureka Springs also has those hot springs.
00:06:16
Speaker
and water nearby. And so it makes me think that they're absolutely like, we already know there's energy and stuff, and water. And so it makes me think that like, some of these places are even more charged because of that. Like that energy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that one like Eureka Springs water is supposed to be like life healing. Like,
00:06:39
Speaker
That is true. Taking their water is supposed to just keep you young and make you healthy. That is what they say. Let's jump into a little bit about the history because it goes exactly along that route.
00:06:56
Speaker
Technically, I guess the date that they have listed for its founding, Eureka Springs was founded on July 4th, 1879. That's not even when it was actually legitimately found. It was named after the Healing Springs, of course, that the area is known for.
00:07:21
Speaker
The story goes that this doctor, his name was Alva Jackson, came across Basin Spring, which I guess is the hot spring or whatever that's nearby Eureka Springs, in 1856. And he began selling the water as Dr. Jackson's eye water after he used it to treat his son's eyes.
00:07:43
Speaker
I'm not sure what was wrong with this kid's eyes. Like I didn't dive too deep into that. So he could have just been healed from like, you know, over time your pink eye goes away or something like that. I mean, I don't know. Or like it flushed the cat hair out of his eye. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. But no, he didn't tell anyone about this basin spring, like natural, like heal all element.
00:08:08
Speaker
place until after he brought a friend with a leg problem to the spring in 1879 because he wanted to cure his leg issues. He had to make his money first with selling his eye water.
00:08:24
Speaker
is it Sweeney Todd where they're selling the magical elixir for hair loss or something where he's like singing the song about magical elixirs. That's what I always think of in these like snake oil situations. Literally, and I that's probably exactly how I went to probably had his kid. Yeah, that is he dies singing and selling it.
00:08:48
Speaker
So when people found out about this magical place with its healing waters, there was a tremendous boom. And 20,000 people just showed up within a few years. And there was such a huge influx of people that the infrastructure could not keep up. And so shanties were popping up all around the town. And I'm taking your words here. It wasn't the vibe.
00:09:15
Speaker
Shortly after this, investors realized they could make a lot of money if they built some stuff here. So they became attracted to the area and they wanted to build up the town and they created a ton of new businesses to increase their own profits. I want to point out here that build up is the perfect term because the entire, especially the area that we stayed in,
00:09:37
Speaker
Like it has one main road that just winds up this mountainside basically. So the town light goes up the hill. Wow. Literally like build up is like a literal term there. Wow. Let's see. I didn't even know that. That's perfect. Lots of steep roads. Yeah. I bet it sucks if you're a runner. We walked the entire time we were there because we were like, we're not driving anywhere. These are little tiny places.
00:10:06
Speaker
My legs hurt so bad by the end of it. I'm sore. I get that. So something that is pretty, I guess, unique for Eureka Springs was the fact that there were four major fires all within the span of 10 years that devastated the town. The first one was in 1883, and
The Decline and Revival of Eureka Springs
00:10:30
Speaker
this one destroyed most of the town's early wooden structures. And throughout this next
00:10:36
Speaker
I guess 10 years after this fire, the buildings, they started using more limestone to build some of these buildings again because it's supposed to be less indestructible. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the fires weren't near as bad because they all were just terrible.
00:10:56
Speaker
The next one was in 1888, so only five years. And then another one two years later in 1890, and then the last one in 1893. And this wasn't the end of the fires either. These were just like the four major fires that is in their history.
00:11:14
Speaker
After 1900 or so, the town started to see a decline with the advancements in modern medicine. Not many people were coming to see the springs. And there was a quick upshot in tourism to the area in the 1920s before the Great Depression when people had more access to vehicles. But in between 1900 and 1920,
00:11:37
Speaker
the area really saw a massive decline because no one really was coming to take these magical elixirs from the town and they were actually starting to take actual medicine for their ailments. So in the early 1920s, I actually really love this story. I thought it was fucking hilarious.
Bank Robbery and Town Mysteries
00:11:59
Speaker
I wanted to include it just because the story is funny, but also they say that part of the
00:12:06
Speaker
the place where this occurred is haunted because of this story. In 1922, part of the Henry stargang wanted to rob the bank over the lunch hour. And so during this time in the early 1900s, whenever it was like noon, most of the staff at like all of the major businesses in town
00:12:27
Speaker
they would go home for an hour to eat and so they would only leave like maybe one person maybe two people in what their place of employment while everybody else went home to eat so the plan was you know if they go during the lunch hour no one's going to be there except for like one teller and they'll be able to rob the place get out no one will even know they were there
00:12:48
Speaker
The problem here though is this was right around daylight savings time and the robbers, they had set their clocks to 12... Their clocks read 12.05, which was because daylight savings time, right? Yeah. The town's clock only read 11.05 because they didn't change their clocks for
00:13:10
Speaker
an hour forward. So nobody was at lunch, like everybody was still going about their day doing their business. The bank was full of people, the streets were full of people. And so these robbers just like bum rushed this bank and took hostages and everything because they're like, well, we're too deep now. I guess we have to fully commit. We already said we're robbing this place. Right? Like, what? And you know, we're not waiting another hour.
00:13:36
Speaker
It was horrible. The bank robbery was completely thwarted by the local townspeople because they could hear the commotion and everything was going on. So all the townspeople, they went home, they got their guns, they got their pitchforks, they got all their shit. They literally like vigilante killed three of the five bank robbers, like drunk them out of the bank and killed them in the street. Oh my God. The other two were arrested, but where the bank robbers that were killed,
00:14:04
Speaker
you know by the angry mob of the townspeople they were killed like where this bank was it was right across the street from where the crescent hotel is and so the two of the bank robbers died in the street like right in front of the crescent hotel and one of them died in the stairwell of the bank.
00:14:23
Speaker
I don't think I included this one in my research, but somebody else died right outside of the Crescent Hotel. I'm trying to remember this story. They told us on our ghost tour about this guy. I think he was a one-time owner at some point, and there was a fire, another fire.
00:14:43
Speaker
Imagine that it was inside the crescent hotel and he was like down at the bottom at his house Like this these steep ass roads that go up to the crescent, right? So he like here's the fire trucks. He sees the smoke coming from the crescent He's like, oh my god, my building's on fire. He's like an older man takes off running, right? He's sprinting up all these like steep ass hills all the way to the crescent he makes it there and dies of a heart attack on the like the steps and
00:15:09
Speaker
I actually have that story in here. There's a lot of death around this place. There really is a lot of death. And so something that I ran across whenever I was researching Eureka Springs is that there are underground tunnels or catacombs in the city and this
00:15:35
Speaker
These catacombs date back to the town's founding, and it's rumored to be the first two major streets in the downtown area. So essentially, the first streets that were originally built in Eureka Springs were built in a low-level Gulch. I don't know what the fuck that is, but they flooded all the fucking time. And so the horses and cars and shit, they just couldn't get through. So in the late 1890s,
00:16:04
Speaker
the horses could not get through. They re-engineered the roads in the late 1890s and so the roads were raised up and many of the businesses along that major downtown area where they raised the streets had to make new entrances on what was their actual second floor thus making the main entrance area now like a basement
00:16:24
Speaker
And many of the buildings on the first major roads in Eureka Springs have old entrances that lead into the underground tunnels. And you can actually go into these tunnels and walk through them, which is terrifying. That is terrifying. And they're supposed to be super haunted.
00:16:45
Speaker
I looked up Gulch because I also did wasn't really like I've heard the term I've never like known exactly what it meant it's a v-shaped valley that's created by like erosion oh so like they should have known it would have flooded if there's been so much like water coming through there that it's created this thing yeah you would think they would think about that no but you know not everybody was super smart back then so true true true
00:17:14
Speaker
There was another hotel near the Crescent Hotel back in the late 1870s. It was called the Silver Hotel.
00:17:26
Speaker
and it burned down in the 1988 fire. It was established in 1879 and it burnt down in 1888. So however old that is, what is that, nine years? Nine years. Nine years. All right, there we go. It looks like half much. We don't know
Crescent Hotel: A Haunted Legacy
00:17:44
Speaker
how much. Oklahoma education over there. For real.
00:17:48
Speaker
for real. There's no lies there. But this hotel, I couldn't find a lot of information about this hotel online because if you look up Silver Hotel, mostly the information that comes up is about a newer resort style hotel like in the area, Eureka Springs.
00:18:06
Speaker
But there was like a really old hotel that was there in the 1870s that did burn down. And a lot of people supposedly died in that hotel while it was going down in that fire because they were all in like the second story and they could not get out. So and I don't know exactly like I couldn't find where exactly in the town this hotel was. But I mean, it was somewhere and it burned all the way down. So
00:18:35
Speaker
Lastly, I just wanted to cover the story that you're referencing. This is the guy that died. His name was Dr. John Freeman Ellis, and he was the house physician for the Crescent Hotel. Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, so he had a doctor's office in what is now room 212, and he
00:18:58
Speaker
played a huge part in Eureka Springs. He was part of their Eureka Springs Improvement Company, and he helped to actually secure a constant water supply in the city to help with the fires, which is pretty cool because he was a doctor.
00:19:12
Speaker
room 212, just as a tidbit, is one of the most sought-after rooms to stay in at the Crescent Hotel, and I'll tell you why in a minute. I wonder if it has anything to do with Dr. John Fremont and us. It does not, but it has something to do with another ghost.
00:19:31
Speaker
Wow. So in 1899, he bought land and built it into the largest limestone building in the city that wasn't actually a hotel. And he turned it into the Rosewater Ellis building that housed the local post office, the local newspaper, the bus, the taxi company. And this building is now the Rowdy Beaver restaurant. So just as an
00:19:58
Speaker
If you're in Eureka Springs, that's what it is. So the story that I found researching was that in 1931, that building caught fire. The Rowdy Beaver restaurant caught fire.
00:20:16
Speaker
And he was in his mid 70s when the fire happened and his dog was in the building, but the dog didn't make it out of the fire. And supposedly the story goes that when he was told that his dog didn't make it, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. And they say that he's one of the five main ghosts of the Cressa Hotel. I don't know how true that is either, but that was the information I found online about him.
00:20:44
Speaker
So, and of course, like the information that I have on him only came from our ghost tour, like our tour guide told the story. And it was, so there was a, I don't remember what year, but there was a fire inside the Crescent that destroyed, like completely destroyed one of the floors. And I couldn't remember who he was, but he was the resident doctor there. But they said he was down in town. And like when the fire at the Crescent broke out, he went running.
00:21:12
Speaker
back to the crescent and like just from like the exertion of it had a heart attack on the front steps and died. So I don't know. Like, I don't know. I didn't think to look that one up. I actually kind of forgot about him until you were talking about all the fires and the ghosts dying. Were the people dying? But now to talk about the crescent, which is I love the slice, I would go back a million times over, if not just for like,
00:21:42
Speaker
It's so beautiful. And the pizza place in there is delightful. We ate at it like three times. So this is the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa. So the Crescent opened on May 20th, 1886, and it's one of America's most luxurious resort hotels of its time. And the cost of building it was a whopping $294,000 back then, which would be the equivalent of about
00:22:09
Speaker
$9,512,057.23 today. So this was like a fancy schmancy place, right? Yeah.
00:22:19
Speaker
They used magnesium limestone, which is also known as white river limestone, as their main construction material and building it. And because this particular material requires a high level of skill to work with, they had to bring in a group of specialists from Ireland to assist and advise throughout the construction process with this limestone.
00:22:40
Speaker
So the stone was cut to give the crescent 18 inch thick walls that would withstand destructive forces and time without degrading its quality over the years. And so this is where room 212 comes in. So there's a stone mason and his name is Michael and he fell to his death from a scaffold while working at the hotel and he died right in front of room 212.
00:23:07
Speaker
So Michael's story states that he was known to be a ladies man and there were two beautiful women walking the grounds of the hotel and Michael noticed them and he began flirting with them from the scaffold, like from the top. So he lost his footing and he fell to his death and he died like right in front of room 212.
00:23:25
Speaker
And this is known at the hotel today as Michael's Room. And it's one of the most popular rooms due to its high level of paranormal activity. And Michael himself has been categorized by paranormal investigators as a poltergeist in this room.
00:23:41
Speaker
So even to this day, Michael's ghost messes with primarily women. And sightings of his ghost are in or around room 212. And he's also considered to be a trickster or a prankster. So a lot of times, what they were explaining to us when we were there is that if a pretty woman is around, he'll touch them. He'll pull their hair or punch them. It's just anytime women are around, Michael's around. He's like, oh, yeah.
00:24:11
Speaker
here to have a good time. And so if you stay in that room, you're guaranteed to have some like form of activity in the room. And this room has been featured on I want to say like go it's been featured on ghost adventures, ghost hunters and like three other ones that I don't really know what they're called.
00:24:31
Speaker
But they've all done investigations in this room. They've all categorized Michael specifically as a poltergeist. And they always get activity from him when they do investigations there. That's really cool. Yeah.
00:24:46
Speaker
The crescent was pretty much like far ahead of its time because it was also like lit with Edison lamps, furnished with electric bells, had steam heating and even a hydraulic elevator, really making it like the epitome of lavish for this time. And then one of my favorite pieces of information is that there have always been cats tied to the hotel.
00:25:06
Speaker
So like these cats were never bought, they just kind of found their way there. And it happened often enough that they built a special cat door into the back door of the lobby. And they also installed like carpeted stairs so that the cats could come and go as they pleased, which is so cute.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, and then in 1973, there was an orange tabby cat that they had named Morris and he decided to take off residency at the hotel. And he was like the resident lobby cat for 21 years. This cat just like lived in the hotel in the lobby for 21 years. And he was even referred to as the general manager. When he died, a funeral and a wake were held for Morris and there were more than 300 people in attendance. How cute is that?
00:25:49
Speaker
Morris is buried in the East Lawn and his grave is marked with a little headstone so you can go visit Morris if you go stay at the hotel. And then, so the Crescent didn't always stay, this like lavish resort hotel. Over the years, it kind of became a bunch of different things. So in between the years 1908 and 1934, the Crescent was the Crescent College for Young Women
00:26:15
Speaker
in off seasons. So instead of just keeping it running as a hotel, since business was low, they basically had a college, like an all-women's college, in the conservatory. And again, this is like due to declining revenue. This board member, his name was A.S. Maddox, suggested that they allow this an exclusive all-girls academy to operate throughout their school year. And then during the off season, the Crescent would resume operating as a holiday retreat.
00:26:44
Speaker
From what I could remember, and then I didn't find like any history, there wasn't anything crazy that happened during this time. This was just kind of like a way that they could supplement that money. I mean, it's a pretty ingenious idea. Yeah, but enter its next era, right? So three years later, in 1937, it became the Baker Cancer Hospital.
00:27:07
Speaker
So Norman Baker was considered a charlatan who ran the hotel as a like quote unquote cancer curing hospital and like the horrific discovery was found in 2019 during an archaeological dig where they found hundreds of bottles of his again quote unquote secret formula and to this day they had not been able to figure out what the ingredients are even though it was preserved
00:27:31
Speaker
And this secret formula was used for curing cancer, along with the jars of medical specimens that he had surgically removed from patients under his care. So if you stay at the hotel and you do their ghost tour, they take you down into the basement. And the basement was Baker's morgue. So you get to see the autopsy table. There's the cadaver freezer.
00:27:55
Speaker
Um, what else was in there? Oh, his like little office. I don't even want to call it an office. It was like a room that had like a single cabinet in it and like shelves that were just lined with specimens and like this secret curing medication or whatever it is, like serum or whatever. Another one of those like snake oil things, right? Like it was something that he made up
00:28:17
Speaker
So what's important to note though is that Baker was not actually a doctor. His occupations had included being a radio broadcaster and a magician, and his wealth came from him selling a musical instrument that was called an air calliophone. The Baker Cancer Hospital didn't actually offer any type of oncological treatment.
00:28:37
Speaker
Baker claimed that he had found a miracle medicine and the secret cure like what they've been able to extract from it includes like extractions from watermelon seeds corn silk and clover which is why they're like we have no clue what this is like why it is and they like they literally have just been baffled by it they don't
00:28:57
Speaker
They don't know what was the point of this. And then he claimed that it was in the Eureka Springs water because of its healing properties. So he mixed this medicine and then added the water. And this was his secret cancer curing formula. There's his flyer for his Baker's Cancer Hospital.
00:29:19
Speaker
that I have saved and I'm going to post it to our social media this week for you guys because it's wild. The claims on it are wild. This man was a quack. I cannot believe that so many poor people like went through his shenanigans. I feel so bad like just thinking about it and reading about it and like hearing about it. It's awful the things that he did to these people.
00:29:40
Speaker
So because Baker was not actually a doctor and because his like quote unquote miracle cure was not an actual medicine or a cure, many of the people who came to him for treatment
00:29:50
Speaker
like died. And many of these are believed to haunt the Crescent Hotel till this day. That's why it's believed that there is so much paranormal activity is because there was so much like just death in this place for like for no reason. Those who attended the hospital for treatment were promised that if the cancer wasn't cured within three to six weeks they could return for further treatment for free outside of paying for their room board and transportation. So like it was just a way to keep
00:30:19
Speaker
keep the business open, right? Oh, if it's not if it's not cured, just come back and pay for your room and whatever. And I'll keep treating you. No big deal. His examinations consisted of palpitating, pinching and looking at the patients. And while they were considered like cancer focus, he also offered a cure for like other ailments through this medicine that he made. He would just like inject the miracle cure medicine into them and be like, Oh, there you go. Your arthritis is gone.
00:30:49
Speaker
Oh, imagine that. Yeah. So during his time as like a quote unquote doctor, in his cancer curing scheme, he had his broadcasting permit revoked, like so many people were so against everything he was doing. And the police like continually try to shut him down.
00:31:05
Speaker
But like nothing was working and he was still broadcasting right and his broadcasting channel was all about this place and how he was curing so many people and just come see me and I'll get you cured, you know, and then he would get all these people and fill all the rooms Make all this money and people were still dying because he wasn't really doing anything
00:31:25
Speaker
So the like the Federal Radio Commission revoked his broadcasting license. And he just simply moved his channel to Mexico because Mexico wasn't regulating it. So he had several doctors and scientists publish articles debunking his information and his treatments. And then again, law enforcement attempted to arrest him and shut down his practice several times for practicing medicine without a license. But the one time that they actually were able to arrest him, he served one day.
00:31:54
Speaker
That's it. One day, and then they had to release them back out and he just went right back to doing what he was doing. But what's funny is that his downfall came from the charges of mail fraud because he was posting materials promoting his cure, which was considered mail fraud. And that's how they like shut him down in the end. But again, like nothing happened to him.
00:32:14
Speaker
He served four years in Leavenworth and then he went and moved to Florida and that's where he lived out the rest of his life in retirement because he had made so much money that he didn't have to do anything for the rest of his days. He got to live out a great life.
00:32:28
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, fucking ass white. Yeah. So because of the terrible treatment and the high numbers of deaths that occurred at the Crescent during Baker's ownership and his practices, it's believed that many of the resident ghosts are from this timeframe. So patients that died, this is something that they like, they told us all about this story when we went on our ghost tour. And it's really, it's really sad.
Resident Ghosts and Preservation Efforts
00:32:52
Speaker
But basically, like,
00:32:54
Speaker
If you went to him for treatment and you ended up dying because you literally have cancer, they would leave you in your room until nighttime when everyone was asleep. And then he would make the nurse go and put that person on a gurney and wheel them out and bring them down into the morgue and put them in the freezer so that no one knew that people were dying. And then they would do this whole story like if someone was like, oh, where's so and so?
00:33:16
Speaker
Oh, they got cured. They're back home now. And then they never hear from them again. They're like, this is weird. But OK, if you say they're cured. So sometimes if someone had a good day, a quote unquote good day in their cancer treatment, because we know that's how an illness works. You're going to have good days. You're going to have bad days. So if they had that good day, basically he'd deem them healed and tell them stop any and all treatment. And he'd send them home. He'd put them on the train and send them home.
00:33:44
Speaker
And a story that, again, I couldn't find the information on this one online, but this is something that one of the tour guides told us that there is a story about a woman who this was her situation. She had a really good day. She was feeling great. She was like, Oh my God, I think I'm on the up. He's like, you're cured. Go home, puts it like, buys her a train ticket, takes her to the train, puts her on the train, she died on the train on the way home.
00:34:07
Speaker
Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. And this happened with many people that he did this with, like not necessarily on the train, but they died shortly after. There's a rumor, though, like none have been proven, that some of the patients there, like there for treatment were tortured and experimented on. But again, like, there's no like solid evidence to this. It's just like rumored that this was a thing. And then Baker, like he would have his patients sign blank stationary or like blank notes.
00:34:37
Speaker
that he would then use to extort more money for their treatment. Oftentimes like these patients would die and then he would draft letters to the family members from the patients asking for financial help for further treatment. So he was like extorting money from these people.
00:34:53
Speaker
even though their loved ones had passed away. They just didn't know that. They had no clue what they got. So there's a ton of death and tragedy tied to the Crescent Hotel. And while there are many deaths on the property, it seems that there's only five main resident ghosts. So the first one is the Stonemason Michael, who I already discussed. He's kind of like the jokester. Everybody loves Michael. They like to go stay in his room. They think he's hilarious. I guess if you're going to see a ghost, maybe one that's going to be funny.
00:35:23
Speaker
Then there's the lingering spirit of a nurse from the Baker Cancer Hospital and She's typically only seen after 11 p.m. And she's often seen pushing a gurney on the third floor So people will just see like just a nurse and her little gurney just going down and then when you get to the end of it She's not there anymore And this is a story that like it got told while we were there by another couple that were on the tour with us it was like their fifth time going and they were like, oh my god, we saw the nurse and like
00:35:52
Speaker
They told the whole story of like following her down the hallway and then she was just gone crazy. Dr. Baker himself is one of the ghosts. And then there's a ghost that her name is Theodora. She's basically just been said to like introduce herself to guests as a cancer patient before just disappearing. She'd be like, hello, I'm Theodora. I'm a patient here for cancer. And then just poof, just like evaporates.
00:36:18
Speaker
And then the last one is a Victorian clothed man with a top hat. And he's actually been reported to help guests. Like there's this whole story about this couple that they accidentally locked their key in their room. And the hotel is like all on like actual keys, like old skeleton type keys. So they locked themselves or their key in their room. They went down to the front desk and this man in like his little Victorian car was there and they thought it was for it. Cause you know, there's a lot of like,
00:36:45
Speaker
historical stuff that goes on so they were like he's probably just like dressing the part for something later so he like goes he grabs the keys he lets them in their room and they came back later to thank him because they like they just later like oh and like went in and did their thing and got their key or whatever so they go back down to thank him and they're like oh where's the guy that was wearing like the Victorian clothes and they're like the hell are you talking about and so they describe him and they're like oh he doesn't work here he's like a resident ghost here
00:37:13
Speaker
He actually like helps people like do stuff like that. Oh, that's interesting, though, because like, I, you know, with the whole that doctor, I wonder if he's like, like the sixth the ghost.
00:37:27
Speaker
Because there's a lot of different ghosts. Those five particular that I listed are just the ones that are consistently there all the time. If you go to the Crescent, you're likely to have an interaction with one of those five. But you could see other ghosts. There's even a cat ghost. And we're pretty sure we caught that one. My friend Rachel was just taking pictures down the hallway at night when no one else was out.
00:37:54
Speaker
I don't know why you would go to a ghost hotel and not be out at night. Okay like that's when the ghosts are mostly going to be out. Yeah so like before of us were walking around exploring and she took a bunch of pictures down this hallway because she was like this looks so creepy and when she was looking through them there's like something small
00:38:14
Speaker
And it doesn't have a whole lot of shape to it, but it's like in all of her pictures, but you could see it like making progress on the hallway like this, like weaving. I know I say like this, like you guys listening can see what I'm doing, but it's like, it looks like it's like weaving back and forth down the hallway. Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:38:33
Speaker
we might have caught the game, who knows. But as far as like the Crescent now, like from 2000 to 2020, there's this couple and they do this to a lot of places down in the Eureka Springs area. Their names are Marty and Elise Roenick and they purchased the Crescent Hotel in May of 1997. They're a self-proclaimed like self-proclaimed preservationist.
00:38:59
Speaker
And they didn't want to see the hotel become run down and basically just get knocked down because it wasn't in great shape. It was quickly on the path of just level the ground and start fresh kind of thing. So they announced a 10-year restoration plan to prevent this from happening. And they got a bunch of people in on it. And then that's why we still have the Crescent today, where you can go and stay in the original building with a lot of its original features.
Basin Park Hotel: Hauntings and History
00:39:25
Speaker
Outside of the Crescent, there was also the Basin Park Hotel in 1905. So the Basin Park Hotel opened in July of 1905 and it was built at a cost of $150,000 back then, which would have been the equivalent of about $4,285,714.29 in today's money.
00:39:46
Speaker
the hotel was foreclosed on during the loan crisis of 1980, so it doesn't really exist anymore. Joe Park Hill was one of the original owners, and he was known for hosting illegal gambling parlors and his run-ins with the town sheriff, who I cannot remember what his actual name was, and I meant to go back and put this in because it was funny. They basically just called him The Weasel. His last name was something close to Weasel,
00:40:13
Speaker
And then he's also known for having obtained a liquor license for the hotel which enticed guests to book rooms or just like simply visit in the evening. I guess maybe that wasn't like normal back then to have a liquor license and to be able to serve. So like a lot of guests would stay there specifically to go like in these rowdy gambling dens that he hosted.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, I heard like two part of the time, it was during prohibition. So he was like serving it and then that makes sense. But he also had like a lot of well, he would consider them friends, but they were just using them like a lot of youngsters from Chicago. And so he wanted to create a place for wealthy individuals from Chicago to come and enjoy themselves down in Eureka Springs.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I was reading that it's rumored that obviously many of the gangsters from Chicago came down because they were able to get away with literally anything there. And then I was reading that Al Capone's sister stayed at the hotel for months on end. So that was a pretty interesting piece of history, if that's true. Yeah. Well, and I believe the thing with them is they had rooftop gardens, and they had really cool ballrooms, which is what I was going to talk about next. So I'll just do that.
00:41:31
Speaker
So again, I couldn't find a whole lot of information, like history, like why this place is haunted, but the Basin Park Hotel is known to be host to several paranormal investigation tours, and the Barefoot Ballroom and Rooftop Gardens are said to be confirmed
00:41:50
Speaker
like a highly active space for any paranormal activity. Something funny about the barefoot ballroom. I can't remember who the couple was. I mean, they were like a famous couple and they were on this like game show and they won and they got this trip to go to Eureka Springs and stay at the hotel. Well, the caveat was that they couldn't wear shoes
00:42:15
Speaker
the entire trip. They just had to be barefoot the entire time. The owner of the hotel leaned into it and they had a barefoot ball in the ballroom, which is now known as the barefoot ballroom. It became an annual thing after that. Everyone loved it. They had so much fun that having a barefoot ball became just a regular thing.
00:42:38
Speaker
That's how all balls should be anyway, because honestly, those shoes are so uncomfortable. Extremely. Like, there's just no way. If I can't wear tennis shoes, or just be barefoot, I don't want any part of it. Yeah. And so like today you can book a room at the hotel or simply just participate in their paranormal investigation and ghost tours around the property.
00:42:58
Speaker
It's obviously crossed hands several times, especially after being foreclosed on in the 1980s, and it's been renovated, so it doesn't hold all of the old charm. The Crescent, I feel, holds that old charm. If you really want the full immersive experience, definitely stay at the Crescent. But again, you could stay at the Crescent and then go over to the Barefoot and do the ghost tours anyways. You don't have to stay there to do those.
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah. So I did find some information on, I guess, where people speculate that the basin hotel or basin park, why it's haunted, but also like, what's funny is like some of the things kind of correlate with the Crescent Hotel as well. Okay. And so it's like this lore kind of gets intersected and it's like trying to pick apart which piece you want to wear. I think this is why I had a hard time finding information on other locations.
00:43:51
Speaker
because I went to the hotel, like the Crescent Hotel.
00:43:55
Speaker
And I got a lot of this information while I was there. So when I was researching other areas, they were talking about things that I tied to the crescent because of like the ghost tour that I went on or staying there and like our own research that we did. So every time it would come up and be like, so and so haunts this place. And I'm like, no, they haunt the crescent. No, that death happened at the crescent. Like, you know, the doctor that died, like two different stories, but like from the crescent's point of view, this man like died right on the steps of the crescent because the crescent was on fire.
00:44:25
Speaker
Yeah, so who knows? But I will say like, so what I've read about the Basin Park Hotel is that it's built on the site of the Perry House, which burned down in a fire like completely in 1890. And so the Perry House was a four story hotel. And it was rumored that many people died on the fourth floor during that fire, which correlates to the third floor of the Basin Park Hotel because the first floor is a lobby. And so they say that
00:44:56
Speaker
like room 321 of the basin park is particularly haunted and especially like the third floor in itself is particularly haunted now but here's where I'm like confused because I wonder if some of this stuff correlates with the crescent part or the crescent hotel
00:45:11
Speaker
and whether like what correlates to the base and park hotel because if the base and park hotel is like not a hotel anymore, then what's a hotel it's not it's not the original. Okay, like it's been redone. Oh, because like when I got foreclosed on eventually someone bought it and redid it so you can stay there but it's not like the original charm.
00:45:30
Speaker
Right. Okay. Okay. So I was reading on TripAdvisor. People were talking about some of their experiences that they had at the Basin Park Hotel. And I thought that they were interesting. So I wanted to include them. So Candy Kay, her TripAdvisor name, she stayed in room 308. And she says that she heard someone walking around her room at 3am.
00:45:53
Speaker
experienced waking up feeling like she was in a sauna, like she was like sweating, which hearing about the fires, that's kind of terrifying. Yeah. And the air temperature wasn't hot. But she like her and I think she said her daughter was there too. Like they both like just woke up and like they were sweating. And they felt like they were being watched the whole time they were in their rooms.
00:46:17
Speaker
And at some point, they even heard like old music being played out in the hallways, but then they would open their door and like nothing would be there in the place where they were hearing the music. And then this guy, I wonder if he got his shit mixed up because he is also someone from TripAdvisor. He says that Theodora, which was
00:46:40
Speaker
the cancer patient that you talked about, he's claiming that she was a nurse at the hospital, and her room was 419 of the Basin Park Hotel. So I think maybe he got his lines crossed. I don't know. I mean, I feel like a lot of the information on this, it's like, obviously, we're talking about ghosts and hauntings. And so it's not scientific, like,
00:47:06
Speaker
definite information. It's all people's accounts of it. It's not like you're going to find a history book that's just on these ghosts that is solid information because it's all going to be personal accounts of experiencing these things. The information is probably definitely mixed and muddled and confused. That just goes with the history of
00:47:31
Speaker
this place and because it has so much history to it. But supposedly, there's been numerous sightings of this nurse throughout the hotel and she's seen outside of doors as if she's trying to turn a key to open the doors and has been known to smile and acknowledgement to people who are passing. And then other ghosts that are seen typically at the Basin Park Hotel are a phantom dog, a ghost in the ballroom, a lion,
00:48:00
Speaker
random. And a man in a brown suit and a woman, but it was just a woman, like I don't have any other like, information besides she was a woman. So yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, like, it's always gonna I feel like it's anytime we talk about this kind of stuff, it's always going to be that way. Like, things are gonna like one person's account is going to be different from this person's account. So
00:48:26
Speaker
That is true. Yeah.
Personal Ghost Encounters in Eureka Springs
00:48:28
Speaker
So when I stayed at the hotel, I went with three of my girlfriends, one of my best friends and I shared a room and our room, like from the start was uncomfortable. Like we had, we went in and we were like, something about the closet of this room, right? The closet was first of all the setup. Okay. The beds were weird. Like one bed came out, like when you walked in the door of the hotel,
00:48:56
Speaker
one bed was on that wall like the wall that the door is on like sticking straight out and then the other bed was like on the next wall over like sideways so like our beds were like in an L shape to each other with a tiny like walkway in between them and the closet was on the the wall
00:49:14
Speaker
like right next to the first bed. And it was just this archway with this red velvet curtain. And I don't know what it was about it, but immediately like we, it creeped us out. There was something off about that space in our room. We felt uncomfortable. We didn't like looking at it like we were sleeping with our backs to it. Like something about that was just off and creepy.
00:49:41
Speaker
And so we dropped our stuff off and we wanted to go grab some drinks and lunch. And when we came back that evening to change, I don't even know how to describe this. I took my clothes that I was going to wear out of my suitcase and they were ice cold. They felt like they came out of a freezer.
00:50:01
Speaker
And Julia's stuff was right next to mine, and she was like, mine feels normal. I don't understand what's going on. My clothes were ice cold, which is just weird. How do your clothes get ice cold in a suitcase in a room where there's not a whole lot of air going on? Yeah. So we were just like whatever, and we laughed it off. Still didn't like the closet. We changed.
00:50:25
Speaker
and we went out on our ghost tour, which was so much fun, but there wasn't anything creepy that happened during the tour. It was like a really quiet night. So like we went, we got drinks afterwards. We had like just a bunch of fun. There's a whole like outdoor thing where you can, so there's a swing set, a giant swing set, and it's on the edge of the hill, like of the mountain. So when you swing, you're swinging out, like kind of over it. So we went out there. It was fun. It's scary, but it was fun. We had a lot of fun.
00:50:54
Speaker
So we go back to the room. Well, our friend Rachel was like, Oh, I brought a Ouija board. And then she went to bed. Like that was it. We were like, Julia and I are sitting in our room, like waiting for them to come back. And I like message our other friend and she was like, No, Rachel's asleep. And I was like, what the fuck? So we were like hanging out. So we're like, whatever, we just hung out all night, like goofing off and watching
00:51:20
Speaker
silly videos and shit and just like reminiscing on stuff because it had been a while since we've gotten to hang out. And then we go to bed. And I woke up at one point in the middle of the night
00:51:31
Speaker
And I heard breathing like down at the, towards the foot of Julia's bed, but I could see her sleeping up here. So like, I know it wasn't her. And me being me, I was like, nope, just rolled over and went back to sleep. I was like, I'm not fucking dealing with this. You stay over there, leave me alone. I'm going back to sleep. And in the morning she was like, oh my God, in the middle of the night I woke up and I heard something breathing at the foot of your bed.
00:51:58
Speaker
like we were both just like but there was this old rocking chair like kind of in the area like against the wall that would have been in between both of our beds so like i don't know if it was just like hanging out in that rocking chair just heavy breathing watching us sleep
00:52:14
Speaker
But it was the grossest like skin crawling experience. And also right before we went to bed, there was like knocking on our door. And we were like, we thought it was our other friends. So we go and like open the door. Nobody's there.
00:52:28
Speaker
And it happened again in the morning, like tap, tap, tap. And then like we opened the door thinking they're coming to like be ready to go get breakfast or whatever. No one there. So while we didn't experience stuff on the goes tour, we did experience stuff in the hotel. 10 out of 10 would recommend it. It is like super ominous and creepy at night. Highly recommend going out and exploring it. It was a lot of fun. I definitely would stay there again. I absolutely loved it.
00:52:54
Speaker
But after that, we stayed at an Airbnb down in town. And this place was a nightmare. Like it was fun, but the things that happened there were not cool. And Rachel, our friend Rachel took like the, there was like, it was two bedrooms in a living room. And then the two bed, or in the one bedroom was like this huge bed. She of course claims that one. She's like, oh, this is my bed. And we're like, whatever, we don't even care. We're sleeping in bunk beds.
00:53:21
Speaker
Julie and I are like, fuck yeah, bunk beds, more room for activities. And Carla couldn't sleep at all. She was so anxious from the second we got to this hotel or this Airbnb. She stayed up like basically 24 hours. She had to get on a plane the next morning. We had to take her to the airport. She sat in the living room all night while we were sleeping with the TV on, like freaked out. Julie and I, night one, because we're in this place for a couple of nights for us, like Carla left that morning, Rachel stayed with us, but
00:53:49
Speaker
Night one, we go and we get ready for bed. We get in bed. I like immediately fell asleep. I was exhausted. We had stayed up so late like playing around with the cross iron.
00:54:00
Speaker
I was like, I'm going to fucking bed, go to sleep. Julia felt something like, like, you know how that feeling when a cat jumps on your mattress? Like, it's just like a light compression. She felt that and like looked and she couldn't. She was like, does our fucking cat in here kind of thing? Nothing. And she was like, rolls over, goes to sleep. And we talked about it that morning and we were just like, wow, that's really creepy. Whatever, like blew it off. When about our day? The next night.
00:54:30
Speaker
I like, we went to sleep. I had the worst sleep of my life. Like I had some terrible fucking dreams. I already have like fucked up dreams all the time and still can't figure out like what they are, what they mean kind of thing. So I had a bunch of these like terrible fucked up dreams all night, got a shitty amount of sleep. I woke up the next morning soaked.
00:54:52
Speaker
like completely soaked. There's no like water in this room. Like it wasn't hot. We had a fan and the air conditioner going. So immediately my brain, I'm on the bottom bunk. I'm like, did Julie pee? Did she pee the bed? Did she just pee on me? Like is this pee? And I'm like feeling the mattress and she's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm soaking wet. Like my hair is drenched everything, like dripping wet.
00:55:18
Speaker
And we're like, what the fuck? Trying to figure it out. No source of water anywhere. It makes no sense. No idea why. That's a no. Right? No for me. So creepy. But definitely do it.
Exploring Eureka Springs: Recommendations and Conclusion
00:55:34
Speaker
Definitely go. It was creepy, but we had so much fun. And if you're looking to do something haunted, I can guarantee you that bitch is haunted. I'm pretty sure all of Eureka Springs is haunted.
00:55:47
Speaker
They also have a really pretty cemetery if you want to just go walk through the cemetery. Rachel did. She took some beautiful pictures of it. I'll have to post some of our pictures on our social media this week for it. So you guys can see some of the stuff we saw. It's also a really cute little town. If you're not into the spooky haunted shit, it's also a very cute little town. There's so much to do. So many cute little shops. Some of my favorite places while we were there, obviously the Crescent.
00:56:17
Speaker
Like not only was it like haunted spooky shit, which I love, but it's like the original.
00:56:22
Speaker
like pretty much everything in it is original except for what was damaged by the fire. So they have like all the old furniture, like old pictures. It's just really fucking cool. Plus your key is like the original keys. Like those old like, what are they brass keys or copper keys? I don't even know. Really cool. You can buy like little replica ones. And then there was a bar there called the voodoo lounge. If you ever go, that bar was phenomenal and really cute.
00:56:50
Speaker
the Cat House Lounge. So this place is a biker bar. It's like your typical biker bar. We had, I will say, this was during COVID and we went to dinner and it started like pouring rain, like torrential pouring. And we're at the bottom, so all the water is flooding down. We're like feats of water right on the road. So we waited until the rain stopped
00:57:14
Speaker
enough that we could sprint from awning to awning to figure out another place to duck in because the restaurant we were eating at closed. So we had gone into one bar and they were just like,
00:57:25
Speaker
awful. They were so rude about everything. We didn't have a good time. We bought one drink and we were like, I'm going to brave the rain rather than deal with this and give them more money. Yeah. We looked up places to go and this cat house popped up like being the closest one. So we sprint through the rain, torrential downpour rain, flooding in the street, sprint through the rain to this place. Literally, we opened the door and the bartender's green tea shots and we're like, absolutely.
00:57:53
Speaker
like we need something. So she brought us over like green tee shots. We hung out with this place for like a couple of hours. It was so much fun. Like definitely a better vibe than the other place. Such like super nice people and really good prices. 10 out of 10 would recommend don't let that it's a biker bar scare you away. Like the friendliest place that we went. That sounds really cool.
00:58:15
Speaker
It was. I absolutely loved it. And then again, the whole town is just really cute, has tons of shops that you can go through, all kinds of stuff that you can do. So definitely recommend. If you're looking for something fun and cutesy, but also a little spooky, Eureka Springs is your place. That's awesome. I can't wait to go. We had such a good time. I would go back.
00:58:39
Speaker
I would also choose my room. I didn't know you could do that. You could request specific rooms and there's a handful of them that are named after the ghost because they're high activity for those things, which was
00:58:55
Speaker
probably something that was more along mine and Julia's line, you know? So I would have booked us one of those rooms and then let Rachel and Karla have whatever room they wanted. Yeah, and you guys could have gotten a whole fucking... I mean, Michael. Yeah, at least he would have like been... maybe that was Michael, who knows? You know, I mean, just like the heavy breathing, you know?
00:59:18
Speaker
Yeah, I was like really fucking creepy. I just remember like I woke up and I was like, that's not Julia. Yeah, cuz I could like see her like her head was right there and the breathing was coming from over here and I was like, nope. A nerd. Yeah, I don't like that. My friggin ghost here used to calm its tits. Where I get my shit.
00:59:42
Speaker
Yeah, and also like I just feel like too with you guys moving you're gonna be moving things around it's gonna stir it up even Yeah, probably we're gonna be moving things around we're gonna be renovating more
01:00:04
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. You can find our source material for this episode linked in the show notes. If you love this episode, we would be forever thankful if you leave us a five-star review on wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you really love the show and want more Get In Loser content, check out our Supercast link provided in the show notes or search the Supercast website for Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft.
01:00:28
Speaker
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