While monitoring our subject sleeping in Theodora’s room [Room 419], several lamps turned themselves on and off. First it was a floor lamp in the couch/TV area. Then it was the nightstand lamp right beside the bed. While we were marveling over the bedside lamp switching on and off, the closet door in the room opened all by itself!
–– Rich Newman of Memphis Tennessee, Paranormal Inc founder on location at the Crescent Hotel for a Japanese television show
I put Eureka Springs on my itinerary because I had vague but pleasant memories of the town from a trip with my first husband when I was nineteen. Little Switzerland, I think it was called then.
I don’t remember where we stayed, but it wasn’t the Crescent Hotel. I’m not sure it was in operation at that time, but if it was, it would have been completely out of our newlywed budget.
On this trip in June 2019 I booked the hotel because of its reputation as “America’s Most Haunted Hotel.” Jeri and Darci had stayed there in 2017, and Jeri told me about her experience in Michael’s Room:
We chose Michael’s Room just to see if we might see or hear or feel his ghost. Nothing happened that night, but the next morning I poured a cop of coffee from the coffee maker and went to the desk to work on my computer. A little later I went back to get a second cup, and the coffee maker was unplugged. Neither I nor Darci had unplugged it. I said, Now, Michael, I know it was you, and you don’t scare me one bit.
— Jeri Wells
When I walked through the front doors of the Hotel I felt as if I had traveled back in time. The interior and furnishings are Victorian, and despite the many lamps throughout the room, the lobby looked dark and forbidding. Apropos of a haunted hotel.
Many of the ghost sightings happen during the ghost tours, no surprise, but the tours were fully booked when I was there. Which is just as well, as I didn’t particularly want to see the old morgue and autopsy room in the basement (the hotel used to be a hospital).
So I don’t have a ghost story to tell . . . however, Annie was unusually skittish in the room and refused to sit on the balcony with me. She went out there once and nosed around the concrete floor, then scratched at the door to be let in and refused to go out again.
Could it be Michael’s ghost was hanging out on my balcony . . .
The Mooch and the White Jesus
I went up to the SkyBar for pizza that evening and took Annie who sat quietly on her mat under the table The waiter — a dead ringer for Anthony Scaramucci — fast-walked by my table several times without looking at me. When I finally caught his eye, he stopped long enough to say, I’m all alone up here, whadda ya want? Me: Just bring me a glass of wine please and I’ll sit here quietly till things calm down. He gave me what might have been a smile and brought my wine on his next trip through.
I sipped my wine and looked out over the green hills, the same view from my balcony, just one floor higher.
And then I saw it. A white Jesus, arms outstretched, looming above the trees.
The statue glowed in the light of the setting sun (the above photo was taken on an overcast morning the next day).
Every time I looked up White Jesus was beckoning to me.
It was disconcerting — sparking childhood memories of watching the sky and waiting for Jesus to float down from a cloud and judge us all, including sinful little girls like me.
When I got back to my room I googled “White Jesus in Eureka Springs.”
The statue is called the Christ of the Ozarks. It’s 66 feet tall and sits on one of the highest hills in the town and anchors a religious theme park which offers, among other things, a Holy Land Tour. Really. The statue and the park were built by a guy with too much money who appeared to be trying to buy his way into heaven.
Postscript
As I made my way down the hill the next morning, I remembered the trip up the hill the day before.
I had taken a wrong turn and found myself on a gravel road about the width of my SUV, with a dirt embankment on the left and., on the right, a steep tree-lined drop-off . . .
I gamely follow Siri’s instructions, as the road gets steeper and narrower. Then, about a half mile up the hill, I lose my nerve.
I put the car in Reverse and start to back down the hill, but I can’t bring myself to drive backwards for half a mile on a road so narrow and steep. I had passed a driveway about 20 feet back, so I roll slowly down the hill and start to back into the driveway — and the car lodges against the embankment.
I inch forward and then back, forward and back, trying to get a clear shot at the driveway. Now I am horizontal on the road, the rear of the car partially in the driveway, the hood practically kissing the trees that rise up from the cliff in front of me.
I put the car in Reverse again and press the gas pedal — but instead of moving backward the tires spin in the loose grave and the car jerks forward. I slam on the brakes and shove it into Park. The car settles, moving forward a notch as it always does when I put it in Park.
I feel panic closing in. I have no idea how close I am to the cliff in front of me, but it looks like I’m right at the edge.
I sit for a minute to catch my thoughts, which are ricocheting off the windows.
If I put the car in Reverse, will it lurch forward again on the loose gravel? And if it does, am I close enough to the edge of the cliff to go over? I don’t want to get out of the car and look because what if the movement sends the car over the cliff? I could call AAA but what could they do? I am parked horizontally on the road. They would have to pick the car up like a toy and set it back down in the right direction. I was pretty sure they weren’t equipped to do that.
Finally, after too many visions of my road trip ending on a steep gravel road in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, I say a prayer, take a deep breath, ease the gearshift in Reverse, and press the gas pedal.
The tires spin for a nanosecond, then the car shoots backward into the driveway — and again lodges against the embankment.
But now I’m far enough into the driveway to turn the wheels to the right and after a couple of maneuvers I head down the hill.
Thank you, Spirit, I whisper.
In retrospect, in a place where a tall white statue looms above the trees, perhaps I should have said, Thank you, White Jesus!
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