The Eureka Springs Hotel advertises itself as "America's Most Haunted Hotel", with a website that is all about the hotel's hauntings and history. The hotel has a ghost tour every night; "ghost packages"; and an ESP weekend, among other ghost-related activities.
As for the hotel's history, in the 1930s it was a hospital for cancer patients. Norman Baker, the owner at that time, claimed to be able to cure cancer, and countless people believed in his "tonic" containing watermelon seeds, corn silk, and other ineffective ingredients. This substance was not harmful to ingest, but it had no effect on cancer.
Baker had to flee the state of Iowa for his practices, which had netted him a huge amount of money. He moved to Arkansas and renovated a Victorian-era hotel in Eureka Springs, his "Castle in the Air", where he continued accepting cancer patients. One estimate claims that Baker made $500,000 in a single year - which would be more than 5 million dollars in modern times. In 1940, Baker was sentenced to prison in Leavenworth; upon his release, he moved to Florida, where he died in the 1950s.
Many of the patients died at the hotel. Some of them still roam the halls, joined by an Irish stonemason known as Michael, who was killed in building the hotel in 1885; a cat named Morris; and Norman Baker himself. The hotel still contains a basement morgue, a holdover of the days when it was run by Baker (and was very necessary). The morgue is the final stop on the nightly ghost tour.
Apart from the supernatural activity, the hotel offers a spa with massage, scrubs, body wraps, infrared sauna, and teeth whitening, plus a salon with manicures, pedicures, and the usual hair cutting/styling/coloring services. There are three dining locations on the premises, and a wide variety of activities in and around Eureka Springs.
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