Eureka Springs · Crescent Hotel hilltop
1886 Crescent Hotel
An 1886 resort on West Mountain where Norman Baker ran a fraudulent cancer 'hospital' in 1937–40; it bills itself 'America's Most Haunted Hotel'.
- Built
- 1886Built 1884-86 as a resort hotel by the Eureka Springs Improvement Company under former governor Powell Clayton. Opening date varies by source: May 1, 1886 (EoA, NRHP individual nomination), May 10 (1970/2005 district nomination), and the May 20, 1886 gala banquet for James G. Blaine (EoA, HHA).
- Style
- Richardsonian Romanesque / French Renaissance (eclectic)
- Architect
- Isaac S. Taylor (St. Louis)
- Type
- Grand hotel
- Area
- Crescent Hotel hilltop
- Credentials
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places; Inside a National Register historic district; Historic Hotels of America member
The story
The Eureka Springs Improvement Company, headed by former governor Powell Clayton, built the hotel on a 27-acre site at a cost of $294,000, with limestone quarried near the White River. It opened in May 1886 as a year-round resort and was used as Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women from 1908 (summers as a hotel). In 1937 Norman Baker bought it and ran the Baker Hospital, a fraudulent cancer clinic, until his 1940 mail-fraud conviction. The hotel reopened July 4, 1946, survived a 1967 fourth-floor fire, and was bought by Marty and Elise Roenigk on February 28, 1997, who restored the roofline and added the New Moon Spa.
The ghost story
By reported lore, the hotel's ghosts include 'Michael', a stonemason said to have died during construction, 'Theodora', a cancer patient of Norman Baker said to haunt Room 419, and Baker himself near the old recreation room; a guest reported seeing a nurse pushing a gurney in July 1987. The hotel markets itself as 'America's Most Haunted Hotel', which is its own billing, and runs nightly ghost tours ending at Baker's former morgue.
Source: encyclopediaofarkansas.net
Good to know
- Breakfast: available
- Pets welcome
- Address: 75 Prospect Ave, Eureka Springs, AR 72632
Sources (3)
Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.