Well…ok…fine…..I’ll post something. My life is just so damn boring though there is NEVER anything worth writing about.
Larry and I had a romantic getaway weekend in Eureka Springs, Ar. That’s right. Smack dab in the middle of the Ozarks. Yee haw. I was pleasantly surprised though. The little town was actually quite cosmopolitan and eclectic. And gay. Must be all those artists and writers who live there.
For those of you who don’t know about Eureka Springs (and really, why would you?) it’s a little resort town in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas, known for it’s plethora of healing springs and Victorian architecture. The whole damn town is listed on the National Historic Registry. I’m not a big fan of all that gingerbread Victorian cutesiness but some of the houses are just spectacular. A lot of the architecture is actually quite gothic in appearance given that a lot of the area’s natural limestone was used in the construction of the larger buildings. There are also about 50 natural hot and cold water springs dispersed throughout the town. In fact, the whole town is built into the sides of hills (they call them “mountains”….ha!) and no two streets intersect at a 90 degree angle. It’s all loops and curves and steep hills.
The town also exhibits an odd juxtaposition of traditional Christian elements mingling with the paranormal. One of the area’s better known attractions is a nightly Passion Play which attracts thousands of visitors every year. Towering above the theater area is a gigantic limestone Christ. He’s seven stories high and glistening white. We took to calling him B.J. – short for Big Jesus. He watched over us solemnly, glittering in the setting sunlight, as we enjoyed cocktails from the fourth floor balcony of Dr. Baker’s Lounge at the Crescent Hotel, which leads us to the paranormal happenings in town.
Like any town full of historic buildings, Eureka Springs is rumored to be full of ghosts and poltergeists and is purported to actually be centered on some kind of vortex into the nether world or whatever it’s called. Of all the buildings in town, The Crescent Hotel (www.crescent-hotel.com) is the most haunted. You’ve got to go on the website and look at this building. It’s stunning. And creepy. I loved it. Elegantly Victorian and forebodingly Gothic at the same time. The history of the building is also quite fascinating. It started as one of the grandest hotels of it’s time, served as a girl’s college in the off season and was actually a “cancer” hospital for a short while during The Depression. That’s where “Dr” Norman Baker comes in. A charlatan who claimed he could cure cancer through “natural” remedies, he packed the hotel full of desperate cancer patients who then proceeded to die by the scores within the confines of the building. There are numerous unsubstantiated rumors circulated about what was really going on at the hospital during those days. The mildest of the tales say the patients simply died from their cancers and were incinerated at night so no one would know the Dr. couldn’t really cure cancer. The most horrific tales purport Dr. Baker was actually a psychopathic madman who carried out “scientific” surgical experiments on his patients without anesthesia, leaving them to die long protracted painful deaths. Supposedly, he secreted bodies in the walls of the hotel and left huge jars full of various cancer ridden body parts in the cellar of the building. All extremely fascinating stuff!!! Why hasn’t a movie been made about this guy? Even if the taller tales are bunk, it’s still a fantastic tale that’s somewhat rooted in fact.
We learned all this when we took the Crescent Hotel Ghost tour. The tour itself was kind of boring. We meandered down the halls and wound up in what was actually the hospital morgue during Dr. Baker’s day. One of the autopsy tables was still there and in current use as a workbench. Throughout the tour, we were encouraged to take digital photos as digital cameras seem to have a knack for capturing paranormal entities or “pure energies” as the tour guide called them. In the first two pics we took, you can definitely see orbs of light where there were none visible to the naked eye. I’m not saying these were actual disembodied souls floating in air and I’m not saying they weren’t. I’m just saying we have strange glowing orbs in some of our pictures. In any event, I definitely want to go back and stay the night at the hotel. It’s just a lovely old building, haunted or not, although I would LOVE to have a paranormal experience.
We did other things in town like drink and eat and browse the gift shops. Oh, we also went on a trail ride. I’ll try to post pics later when I’m at home. We enjoyed our stay at the B & B, especially the Jacuzzi tub in our room (wink wink nudge nudge). All in all, a most relaxing and much needed trip.
That was a GREAT post! I will have to look up the hotel now, although when it comes to visiting it, I may be on my own; Amy is a wuss when it comes to paranormal things. I LOVE them!
Posted by: Sean at September 20, 2005 01:32 PMI forgot to mention in my post. The SciFi Channel spent a week at the hotel back in June trying to capture paranormal activity at the hotel. They won't tell the hotel or ghost tour people what they captured but they're airing a special on the hotel sometime the week before Halloween. The ghost tour people are excited by this as they think the film makers must've got some good stuff to air it right before Halloween.
I'm definitely going to watch!
Posted by: Cindi at September 20, 2005 02:12 PM