The definition of a S.O.B,

Nuff said???

HAUNTED ARKANSAS PART FIVE

Mount Holly Cemetery

Well, I am back in the land of the living… for now. Feeling a whole lot better, so… without further ado, I give you The Mount Holly Cemetery.

Mount Holly is currently open to the public and located on 12th street in downtown Little Rock. It is the final resting place of many of Arkansas’ most prominent early leaders, governors, senators and Confederate Generals.

Mount Holly was established in 1873, which is less than a decade after Arkansas became a state. Mount Holly Cemetery is not the oldest but is said to probably be the most historically significant cemetery in Arkansas.

The cemetery is the final resting place of executed 17-year-old Confederate spy, David O. Dodd, who is the most famous of the Civil War soldiers resting there (his story at a later date) as well as five Confederate generals and countless Confederate soldiers.

Also buried there are 10 former Arkansas governors, 6 United States senators, 14 Arkansas Supreme Court justices and 21 mayors of the city. Some of the stones date back to the 1800s.
Some of the paranormal goings on reportedly is that some of the statues move in front of them and supposedly photographic proof is there to prove it. Photos taken at the cemetery have ghostly images of what looks like people dressed in period clothing; others have strange lights and apparitions in them. Some say they hear a flute playing in the cemetery. Locals’ living near the cemetery has reported finding pieces of graves or statues placed on their lawns. It is also reported that trinkets mysteriously appear on graves.

So… on some dark and gloomy night… take a drive to the cemetery, get your camera, get me some pictures and we will post them here… if you dare!

Under the weather.

Been outa it for a few days and will resume posts as soon as possible!

Mr. X

HAUNTED ARKANSAS PART FOUR

The Legend of Boggy Creek

or

The Fouke Monster

I lived in Bald Knob in the early 70s and I can still remember the fear of being outdoors after dark. I can remember countless times walking home from a friends house and hearing footsteps behind me or a noise in the woods... which of course prompted me to run like the hounds of hell were right on my heels.

I can remember a friend of mine telling me his mother had seen a dark hairy face in the window after dark... they hid till his dad came home... now, how much is true and how much our parents were milking this to get us home early and not having to hunt us down we may never know.

This "creature" was supposedly 7 feet tall and hairy all over. He is smelly and kills chickens, dogs, cows and other live stock. So far he hasn't killed any people.

He resides in the southwest part of the state in a place called Fouke Arkansas. In the late 60's and early 70's the "monster" harassed two families living outside Fouke.

It also inspired the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek".

I guess this is our version of Big Foot or Sasquatch, never the less I can remember how the hair would raise on the back of my neck if I was out at night... even the adults walked a little faster, despite the fact I am sure they used it to keep us kids in line, in the back of their mind even THEY weren't quite sure just WHAT that noise was.

Another story that made the 70's miserable was a story that started February 22, 1946 in Texarcana Texas/Arkansas.

5 people were murdered in a killing spree by a pillowcase wearing madman... It was dubbed the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders," It also inspired the movie in the late 70's "The Town that dreaded Sundown.

As of 2006 the case is still open.

But...

That is a story for another day!

HAUNTED ARKANSAS PART THREE

The Gurdon Light

The locals have a legend to explain the light. Which is actually historically accurate.

A railroad worker was working outside of the town one night. He accidently fell on the tracks into the path of an oncoming train and was killed. His head was severed from his body and never found.

Locals say the light is actually the light from the railmans lantern as he walks the tracks searching for his missing head. The death is a documented fact. It is also true that the light appeared shortly after his death.

This light cannot be seen from the highway. It's about a two and half mile hike to where you can view the mysterious lantern. You will pass by two trestles before it is seen. The spot is marked by a slight incline in the tracks and then a long hill. The light is an eerie white-blue light which sometimes appears orangish.

The is said light to sway back and forth and move around on the horizon. The light is frequently seen on the darkest nights and best seen when it is cloudy and overcast. The light never reflects off the tracks and there are no roads or buildings nearby so it's not a reflection from passing headlights or anything else that is easily explainable, although an Arkansas Times article disagrees. There is also a theory that suggests stress on the quartz crystals underneath Gurdon causes them to emit electricity and produce the light.


Gurdon, Arkansas is located about 75 miles south of Little Rock on Interstate 30 and is located on Highway 67. The light is outside of town and along a stretch of railroad tracks. It takes a couple of hours to reach the location. You can ask for directions in Gurdon. Ask at any gas station. Everyone in this small town knows what you mean it's known locally as "ghost light bluffs".

There is a similiar light with a similiar story in Crossett.

HAUNTED ARKANSAS PART TWO

It's Friday 13th, dark clouds, rainy and gloomy, not a bad day to add another installment of HAUNTED ARKANSAS.

The Spooky Hitchhiker

Little Rock Arkansas

Urban legends, gotta love'em! Many small communities has their own version of this story.

A young girl on her prom night meets her untimely death. This specific story takes place on highway 365 just north of Little Rock.

According to the story, every year around prom night a young woman in a white dress which is reported to be torn and ragged and the girl is bloody and bruised, stops a driver on Highway 365.

Sightings have been on the part that runs just south of Little Rock and past the towns of Woodson, Redfield and even as far as Pine Bluff . Most of the time she's found on the bridge and tells them that she's been in an accident and needs a ride home Invariabley, someone gives her a ride home. only to find that when they get to the house she asked to be dropped at, she's no longer in the car. She has completely disappeared.

The person is always confused and knocks on the door of the house that she's been taken to...why I have no idea???.

The people opens the door and reports that their daughter was killed on prom night and every prom night since then, she's has caught a ride with someone different bringing her home.

One variation on this legend reports the girl left a coat in the unwitting driver's car and when he knocked on the door, coat in hand, the mother broke down into tears exclaiming, "That was my daughter's coat".

There are different stories in a different small town every time. Sometimes she gets killed at prom, sometimes homecoming and sometimes just riding home with a date.

I'm not going to get caught riding across that bridge on a dark and stormy night!

This is a story I read by Amanda Galiano, she is a web developer & student pharmacist who lives in Arkansas.

Changes

I have changed one of the settings on the coments button... you can now post your comments without being a member.

HAUNTED ARKANSAS PART ONE

HAUNTED ARKANSAS

THE CRESCENT HOTEL

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

The idea for this started the other day when I was chatting with my cousin.

He and his wife spent their honeymoon there, not knowing anything about the hauntings.

He himself experienced the weirdness of the Crescent Hotel up close and personal... hopefully we will be able to get him to retell the experience he had that night.

Meanwhile Through research I have found and interesting article you will find interesting!

An Excerpt from Troy Taylor's book, The Haunting of America!

Located in remote resort town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas stands the gothic Crescent Hotel. Called by some the "Grand Old Lady of the Ozarks, the hotel has served as many things over

the years and yet strangely, each incarnation was reported to be haunted and each one also contributed to the legion of phantoms believed to walk the corridors of the building.

If there is a single place in the Ozark Mountain region that can be called "most haunted", it is this one!

The hotel was built on the crest of West Mountain between 1884 and 1886 and may have gained its first ghost when a workmen fell from the roof during the construction. His body landed in the second floor area where Room 218 is now located. I doubt that it?s a coincidence that this room is considered to be one of the most haunted in the hotel!

The Crescent was designed by Isaac L. Taylor, a well-known Missouri architect who was famous for a number of buildings in St. Louis and who would go on to greater fame for his designs during the 1904 World?s Fair. The financing for the hotel came from a number of wealthy individuals and businessmen, including Powell Clayton, the governor of Arkansas from 1868 to 1870, and later the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Clayton formed the Eureka Improvement Company to seek investors and to acquire land, hoping to take advantage of the "boom time" of the period. Many of the other investors included officials with the Frisco Railroad.

The construction of the hotel, and development in the area, was so important at that time thanks to the national attention that had come to Eureka Springs (and other locations in Arkansas) for the ?healing waters? that were bubbling from the earth nearby. During the late 1800?s, people traveled from all over the country to take in the waters and to hopefully ease and cure their particular ailments. In addition, spring water could also be bottled and shipped out, further enhancing the small town?s reputation.

The officials from the railroad were involved in the development plans because of the excursion train trips that had become so popular in the 1880?s. The Frisco Railroad had built a spur from Seligman, Missouri to Eureka Springs to accommodate the tourists who wanted to visit the area. It was in their best interest to also develop a fine hotel for them to stay in. As the Crescent neared completion, liveried footmen would meet guests at the railroad depot and transport them by coach to the portico the new hotel.

The hotel itself combined a number of architectural styles to create a unique (and sometimes foreboding) setting. It is equipped with numerous towers, overhanging balconies and granite walls that are more than 18 inches thick. Numerous renovations have altered the five-story interior, but the lobby is still fitted with a massive stone fireplace that dominates the room. At one time, more than 500 people could be seated in the dining room. Electric lights were included in the original construction, as were bathrooms and modern plumbing fixtures. The lawn outside was decorated with gazebos, winding boardwalks and flower gardens and guests were offered tennis courts, croquet and other outdoor recreations.

The Crescent became almost immediately popular and attracted people from all over the south. It flourished for several years and from 1902 to 1907, it was taken over by the Frisco Railroad, which leased the property as a summer hotel. Not long after, people began to realize that while the local hot springs were certainly wonderful, they held no curative powers. The springs soon lost the interest of the wealthier class, who had many other pursuits in that "gilded age" and business for the town dropped off. The loss of revenue convinced the railroad to quickly abandon their attempt at running a hotel.

The next 60 years were not good ones for the Crescent. It was open year-round, but it was starting to slip into a more run-down and decrepit condition. Various attempts were made to keep the place up and running, but as time passed, Eureka Springs lost its past prominence and the hotel became a forgotten curiosity. But it did not stand empty, as history goes on to testify.
In 1908, the hotel was opened as the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women and served as an exclusive academy for wealthy ladies. During the summer it still catered to the tourist crowd, but the money it made was not enough to keep the aging monolith in business. The costs of running, heating and repairing the place were so overwhelming that they were not ever offset by the staggering tuition charged to the students. The school closed in 1924 and then reopened briefly from 1930 to 1934 as a junior college.

By the 1920's, the automobile was transforming Arkansas into a vacation state. One estimate even claimed that nearly a half million people drove to the Ozarks for vacations in 1929, a staggering number for the time. Because of this, there were a number of businesses that leased the Crescent as a summer resort after the school closed down.

However, in 1937, Norman Baker leased the hotel for another purpose altogether. These were the darkest days of the hotel and according to most, the time when the haunting really began at the Crescent Hotel. The deeds committed during this era have unquestionably had a lasting impact on the building... and perhaps on the spirits who still linger here.

When Baker took over the hotel, he had plans to turn the place into a hospital and "health resort". Baker was an Iowa-born charlatan who had made his fortune by inventing the Calliaphone, an organ played with air pressure and not steam. He had made millions of dollars by 1934 but he was never content with this. He considered himself something of a medical expert, although he had no training. He claimed to have discovered a number of "cures" for various ailments but he was sure that organized medicine was conspiring to keep these "miracle medicines" from the market. He was also sure that these same "enemies" were trying to kill him.

Baker started a hospital in Muscatine, Iowa but ran afoul of the law over his "cure" for cancer. He was convicted of practicing medicine without a license in 1936 and all of his medicines were condemned by the American Medical Association. Nevertheless, he purchased the Crescent Hotel and remodeled it, tragically tearing out the distinctive wooden handrails and balconies and painting the wonderful woodwork in garish shades of red, orange, black and yellow. He decorated his own penthouse in shades of purple. He also added a few other touches to his private rooms, hanging machine guns on the walls and installing secret escape passages that would save him should his AMA "enemies" attack.

Baker moved his cancer patients from Iowa to Arkansas and he advertised the health resort by saying that no X-rays or operations were performed to save his patients lives. The "cures" mostly consisted of drinking the natural spring water of the area and various home remedies... or so the "official stories" say. According to most reports, no one was actually killed by Baker?s medical claims, but local legend tells a different story.

The legends say that when remodeling has been done at the hotel over the years, dozens of human skeletons have been discovered secreted within the walls. It has also been said that somewhere within the place are jars of preserved body parts that were hidden so as to not scare off prospective buyers. They still have not been found to this day.

These same stories also claim that Baker was no harmless quack, but a dangerous and terrible man who experimented on both the dead and the living. One of his "miracle cures" for brain tumors was to allegedly peel open the patient?s scalp and then pour a mixture of spring water and ground watermelon seeds directly onto the brain. Dozens of the patients died and Baker was said to have hidden the bodies for weeks until they could be burned in the incinerator in the middle of night. As his publicity claimed that he could cure cancer in a matter of weeks, he had to keep the press from finding out that many of his patients died every month. It has been said that he would put the extreme and advanced cases into an "asylum", where they would die in extreme pain. That way, no one would know that they actually died of cancer.

These are the legends that have been told, although most sources will say that these events never actually took place. They will say that they are nothing more than tall tales that have been attached to the Crescent over the years. And perhaps they are right....
Regardless, federal authorities caught up with Baker and he was charged with using the mail to defraud the public about his false medical claims. He was convicted in 1940 and sentenced to four years in Leavenworth. The hospital closed and Baker vanished into history. But would those who died at his "health resort" disappear so easily?

The brooding old hotel stayed closed until 1946, when new investors took it over and began trying to restore the place. The hard years still showed and the hotel was described as being "seedily elegant". Since then however, it has started to regain it's lost glory and it remains an odd and historical piece of Ozark history. It also remains haunted.

Staff members receive frequent reports from overnight guests of strange goings-on in their rooms and in the hallways. Room 424 has had several visitations but the most famous haunted spot is the previously mentioned Room 218. Several guests and employees have encountered strange sounds and sensations in that room. Doors have slammed shut and some people claim to have been shaken awake at night. One man, a salesman, was asleep in Room 218 one night when his shoulder was violently shaken back and forth. He awakened just long enough to hear footsteps hurry across the floor. He saw no one in the room.

Who this particular ghost may be is unknown, although some believe it is the spirit of the man who was killed during the hotel?s construction. His body was said to have fallen just about where the room is currently located. Other than that, there doesn?t seem to be any particular macabre history about this room. A story of the hotel has it that the wife of one of the hotel?s past owners stayed in the room. At one point in the middle of the night, she ran screaming from the room, claiming that she had seen blood spattered all over the walls. Several staff members ran up to take a look but found no blood and nothing else out of the ordinary. Could the spectral blood have been connected to the fallen construction worker? Or perhaps an operating room from Dr. Baker?s days of depravity?

Another ghost of the hotel is that of a distinguished-looking man with a mustache and beard and who dresses in old-fashioned, formal clothing. He seems to favor the lobby of the hotel and a bar that is decorated in the style of the Victorian era. People who claim they have talked to the man say that he never responds, he only sits quietly and then vanishes. In an interview, a staff member recounted one odd experience with the silent ghost: "During the summer, we had two auditors work for us because we?re so busy. One of these men left the front desk to get a drink of water in the bar, after it was closed. He told me that he saw some guy sitting on a barstool, staring straight ahead. He didn?t say anything and he didn?t move. Our guy left to get his partner, who was still at the front desk. They came back and spoke to the man. They thought he was drunk".

When the man again did not respond, the two auditors decided to leave him alone and go back to work. As they looked back over their shoulders on the way out of the bar though, they saw that the barstool was now empty. The man was nowhere in the room.
"One of them started searching for the man," the staff member added. "He looked around the lobby, which is about 25 to 30 yards across, everywhere in that area. The auditor who was looking around went over to the steps (a staircase ascends from the lobby). The fellow from the bar was on the second-floor landing, looking down at him. He went up but as he got to the second floor, he felt something push him back down again. That?s when he got the manager and told him what had happened."

It's possible that the era of Baker?s hospital may have left the greatest ghostly impression on the place. In July 1987, a guest claimed that she saw a nurse pushing a gurney down the hallway in the middle of the night. The nurse reached the wall and then vanished. It was later learned that a number of other people had witnessed the same vision and had seen it reenacted in just the same way.

An apparition that is believed to be Baker himself has been spotted around the old recreation room, near the foot of the stairs going to the first floor. Those who have seen him say that he looks lost, first going one way and then another. Could Baker be "trapped? in the hotel, perhaps paying for misdeeds that were committed many years ago?

Some time back, an antique switchboard from the days of the hospital was finally removed because of all of the problems it caused. A staff member explained: "In the summer we would get phone calls on the switchboard from the basement recreation room. There was no one on the other end because the room was unused and locked. We could check it out and find that the phone had been taken off the hook. There was only one way in or out of the place and the key was kept at the front desk."

This same staff member checked out the recreation room one night after receiving another of the strange calls. He found the phone on the hook, but he still maintains that he felt another presence in the room with him. "I just wanted to get out," he added.

He locked the door and went back upstairs, but within five minutes the switchboard buzzer went off again, indicating that a call was coming from the same room that he had just left. This time, he decided not to go and check it out!

To go along with all of the stories, accounts and experiences, the hotel even has a legendary ghost photo from Room 202. No one knows who took it or why, but the photo contains a misty figure slouching in the closet of the room. The room was empty except for the photographer at the time.

So what makes the Crescent Hotel such a haunted place? Are memories from the past somehow stored here, replaying themselves over and over again on a regular basis to the fear and delight of the living? Or are the deeds of the past simply revisiting the present, reminding us that history is never really forgotten?

Whatever the reason for the strange happenings though, the Crescent Hotel remains one of the South?s most haunted spots and the perfect vacation place for those with ghosts in mind.

You can read more information about, and even make reservations to visit, the Crescent Hotel by visiting their website. http://www.crescent-hotel.com/

This was a long post... hope you look forward to more interesting stories to come!

Come back soon!

Paranormal Phenomena The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts

Think there is an explination for everything? Think again!

This is a worthwhile read!

Follow the link below for the top 10 most puzzeling Ancient Artifacts.

http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa011402a.htm

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of Modern Times

Hairy hominids, serpentine beasts, and things that go bump in the night!

Bizarre and inexplicable creatures that make you go "Whuuuuuuuut?" and science has yet to explain them.

Full article here... http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa010101a.htm