The Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour: Visit America’s Most Haunted Hotel

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We’d like to thank the Eureka Springs Advertising and Promotion Committee along with 1886 Crescent Hotel for hosting our stay and ghost tour.  As always, all opinions are honest and our own.

If you’re visiting Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and you love ghost stories, consider taking the ghost tour at the 1886 Crescent Hotel, commonly referred to as the Crescent Hotel.  This is the first ghost tour we’ve taken where we could actually spend a night where the tour happens, so we were excited!

Click here to read about our stay at the Crescent Hotel.  It was a wonderful stay in a beautiful, historic hotel! You can also read a little about the history of the hotel.

Before the Ghost Tour

Of course, you don’t have to stay in the hotel to take the ghost tour.  The hotel is worth exploring even if you don’t spend the night.  You can purchase your tickets at the front desk of the lobby.  The best part about the ghost tour is seeing the hotel while hearing the lore from over the years.  Even if you think the ghost tour may be too much, I would encourage you to visit the Crescent.  Just the feeling of stepping back in time when you enter the lobby is amazing!

So you’re ready for the tour.  The ghost tour starts on the fourth floor, and the Crescent Hotel does have an elevator. You can also take the fun stairway.

On the fourth floor, there are some benches you can use as you wait for your tour time to be announced.

This area is just opposite the Sky Bar pizza restaurant, so if you’d like, you can have dinner at the Crescent before your tour begins.

The Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour Begins

A few minutes before your scheduled tour, your tickets will be collected and you’ll be shown into the Faculty Lounge where the tour begins.  During the day, you can visit this exhibit free of charge; this room houses a display of memorabilia from the Crescent Hotel’s college years.

Okay, I’ve been in this room on two separate occasions and that mannequin with the sailor suit startled me both times!

The pictures are and other items in this room are fascinating; I strongly encourage you to take a look–ghost tour or not.

Some pictures and items with their stories will be referenced before the tour gets underway.  I don’t want to give away too much, though!

You can also see Norman Baker’s Air Calliaphone that he invented. During the intro of the tour, you’ll get a little demonstration.

When we entered the room for the tour, our guide was at the front of the room getting to know people on the tour.

He asked us where we were from and if we’d been on any ghost tours before.  This one was our fifth!

He started the tour information as soon as it was our tour time.  We had about 15 people on our tour.

The Ghost Tour

After a brief history lesson of the area and the hotel, it was time to take a walk.

We actually made stops on every floor of the hotel, and the ghost stories include several time periods of the hotel–construction, the ladies’ college years, and the Norman Baker years.  Here our guide stops right outside the room with the most activity–Michael’s Room.  It’s also the most requested–218.

The Morgue of the Crescent Hotel

After we explored the four floors of the Crescent Hotel, it was time to go outside and see the creepiest part of the hotel–the morgue.  In 1937, Norman Baker purchased the Crescent Hotel and opened his cancer-curing hospital.  The problem was, he wasn’t even a doctor.  He actually denounced the American Medical Association.  This horrible man used sick people, desperate for a miracle, to make money. Here’s his picture.

Though he claimed everyone was cured at his hospital, many people died, thus the need for a morgue.

When you first enter this area, you get to see a little clip from Ghost Hunters or TAPS.  Here is the clip of their investigation of the morgue.

After we watched the clip, we were able to explore the area they investigated.

We also got to see some of Norman Baker’s bottles.  Recently, some more bottles have been discovered on the premises.  Here is some information on that discovery!

After you explore the room with the locker, you can opt to be shut inside the cooler with the lights out.  Kristin and I sat this part out, but Jeff and most of the rest of the group went in.  Jeff said it was just dark–nothing weird.

Ghost Tour Wrap-Up

Click here to find out how to get tickets.  If you’re looking for something fun to do around Halloween, don’t forget the Crescent!  Reservations in advance, especially during October, are recommended.

We had a great time!  Some parts of the tour are a little creepy, but I don’t think it’s something that is too scary. Just for the record, this is Kristin’s fifth ghost tour, too.  As I’ve said before, the best parts of ghost tours are the stories and history.  Believe what you will.  The Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour is a fun way to spend an evening!

To read about some of our other ghostly adventures, click below!

Ghosts and Gravestones–The Whaley House–San Diego, California

Ghosts and Gravestones–The Andrew Low House–Savannah, Georgia

The Jenni Wade House–Gettysburg, Pennslyvania