Resort hotel · Eureka Springs, Arkansas · Built 1884–1886
Crescent Hotel
A five-story limestone spa hotel of 1886 crowning West Mountain above Eureka Springs, built for a railroad-backed company led by former governor Powell Clayton, later a women's college and a quack cancer hospital.
History
Eureka Springs grew almost overnight after 1879 on claims that its springs could cure anything from hay fever to cancer. Former Union general and Reconstruction governor Powell Clayton, with his friend Richard Kerens, brought a branch of the Frisco railroad up to the town in the early 1880s and organized the Eureka Springs Improvement Company, which built the Crescent on the highest point of West Mountain. Designed by Isaac S. Taylor of St. Louis and built of limestone from a company quarry on the White River near Beaver, with Irish stonemasons on the job, it cost $294,000 and opened in May 1886 with electric lights, electric bells and steam heat; James G. Blaine spoke at the opening gala. William Jennings Bryan addressed a crowd here in 1896.
Trade was strong in summer but thin in winter. The Frisco leased the hotel in 1902, and from about 1908 to 1934 it housed the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women. In 1937 Norman Baker, a radio promoter with no medical training, bought it, painted it lavender and ran it as the Baker Cancer Clinic, advertising cures without surgery over the airwaves, until he was convicted of mail fraud in 1940. Four partners reopened it as a hotel in 1946 with Frisco vacation packages, and Dale Bumpers honeymooned here in 1950. A 1967 fire destroyed the penthouse level and much of the fourth floor. Marty and Elise Roenigk bought the hotel in 1997 and restored it over six years.
“The 1886 Crystal Dining Room is 33' X 90' and is constructed by creosoted railroad ties bolted in unison that span the full width of the dining room.”
Architecture
The Crescent is an asymmetrical five-story building with projecting wings, its rough-faced, squared limestone walls rising from a continuous limestone foundation; the nomination describes the style as a blend of Richardsonian Romanesque, seen in the rugged stone and round arches over the windows, and French Renaissance, seen in the mansard roof with fourteen corbeled chimneys. Georgian-style entrances with nine-foot French doors and fanlights open on both the east and west fronts. A porte-cochère hung on chains and tiers of balconies, rebuilt in concrete in 1937, cross the main front. Inside are a marble lobby fireplace bearing a poem by Powell Clayton, heart-pine floors, a grand stair rising five levels, and the 33-by-90-foot Crystal Dining Room spanned by bolted railroad ties without center columns.
What to look for
- Rough-faced limestone walls with round-arched windows
- Mansard roof lined with corbeled chimneys
- Chain-hung porte-cochère on the Prospect Avenue front
- Marble lobby fireplace with Powell Clayton's poem
- Crystal Dining Room without center supports
Setting
The hotel stands at 75 Prospect Avenue on the north crest of West Mountain, high above the winding streets and springs of Eureka Springs in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas. Its five acres include formal gardens, a fountain garden on the south lawn and two cottages. The Basin Park and Crescent springs are in the town below, and St. Elizabeth's Church sits just downhill.
Timeline
- 1879Eureka Springs founded around its springs
- 1886Crescent Hotel opens in May
- 1902Leased to the Frisco railroad
- c. 1908–1934Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women
- 1937–1940Norman Baker's cancer clinic
- 1967Fire destroys the penthouse and much of the fourth floor
- 2016Listed on the National Register
Where sources differ
- The nomination gives the opening as May 1, 1886, and describes a gala on May 20, 1886.
- The claim that the stone walls were fitted without mortar comes from a secondary history quoted in the nomination.
- Ghost stories about the hotel are legend.
