In the spirit of Halloween, we're bringing you some of the spookiest haunted hotels in the U.S., along with the ghosts you may encounter there (and which rooms to stay in or avoid, depending on whether you enjoy night frights or not!)
The Crescent Hotel & Spa, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
As if this part of the Ozark Mountains wasn't scary enough, the Crescent Hotel & Spa in Eureka Springs, the “Grand Old Lady of the Ozarks” has several spirits that refuse to leave.
The Crescent Hotel opened in 1886, and for 15 years was a luxury destination for the well to do. Hard times came and the hotel ultimately closed in 1934 during the Depression. In 1937, the hotel was purchased by Dr. Norman Baker, a flamboyant fraud who turned the hotel into the Baker Cancer Hospital and claimed he could cure cancer through a proprietary mixture that included alcohol, glycerine, watermelon seed tea and clover leaves. The doctor was finally arrested in 1939, after bilking cancer patients out of an estimated $4 Million and hastening their death. Norman Baker is one of the hotel's ghosts, and several of his patients continue to haunt the suites where they once stayed, seeking to be cured of cancer. There have also been reported sightings of a nurse pushing a gurney late at night, which is when Baker removed the dead.
Another spirit is Michael, an Irish stonemason who fell to his death in 1886 during the Cresent's construction; he landed in Room 218, and is apparently a mischevious ghost: some guests have complained that the heat strangely switches on during summer or the air-conditioning during winter.
If you can't make it to Eureka Springs for Halloween, consider visiting from November 18 on, when the hotel debuts “In the Morgue of the Mastermind: Norman Baker”, a nightly live presentation on the notorious doctor and his patients, er, victims, or January 6-8 for the Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend which will attract ghost hunters from across the country.
The Stanley Hotel, Estes Valley, Colorado
There's good reason the Stanley, an elegant Georgian-style hotel opened in 1909, has been featured as one of America's most haunted hotels: it's not every hotel that is immortalized in a Stephen King novel. Stephen King stayed there (in Room 217), and it inspired the fictional Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.” Yet even apart from that, there have been many reported ghostly incidents. Staff have reported hearing a party going on in the ballroom, yet when the doors are opened, no one is there. Guests in the Lobby have heard music from the ballroom's piano, with no one actually sitting at the piano at the time. Flora Stanley, wife of Freelan Stanley, who built the hotel, was a piano player, so it's said to be her ghost. The TV show Ghost Hunters also investigated the hotel, and alleged some paranormal activity, such as a table jumping two feet in the air, hearing children running and playing on the floor above them when there weren't any around, and hearing “Hello” when investigating a tunnel:
Hotel del Coronado, San Diego, California
Built in 1888, the Hotel del Coronado was one of the most luxurious resorts of its time, and quickly became the playground of the rich and famous, hosting celebrities that would later include eleven U.S. Presidents, the Prince of Wales, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, Marilyn Monroe (who filmed “Some Like It Hot” there, Charlie Chaplin, Humbphrey Bogart, Brad Pitt and Madonna.
But some of its early history is tragic. On November 24, 1892, a woman believed to be Kate Morgan checked into the hotel under an assumed name and never checked out. She waited five lonely nights in Room 312 for the husband of her unborn child to appear, and was then discoverd shot dead on the steps leading to the beach. While deemed a suicide, the coroner's report revealed that the bullet in her head did not match those of her gun. There have been a number of sightings of a woman in a black lace dress, and curtains appear to move even behind closed windows in her room (which was changed to Room 3312, and most recently to Room 3327. Another ghost is said to inhabit Room 502 (now Room 3502) which was said to be where the mistress of the hotel owner, E.S. Babcock stayed. After she learned she was pregnant, she committed suicide, but the body disappeared under mysterious circumstances before it could be buried. Guests have reported an icy chill in this room, and in 1983, the Secret Service agent who stayed there to protect then Vice-President Bush on an offical visit to San Diego reported hearing gurgling sounds, seeing billowing drapes, and feeling an icy breeze even though the windows were closed.
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