Phantasmagoria Photography Prints 
Instantaneous Photographs of Things Unseen
Captured by S.M. McClure on October 2, 2023.
 
"Under a Cursed Moon" captures the iconic front of the Crescent Hotel bathed in daylight, its stately Victorian façade rising with quiet grandeur above the Ozark pines. In the foreground, the charming crescent moon statue greets guests with a playful grin.
 
How can a building so beautiful harbor such darkness?
 
Since 1886, the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, has stood as a beacon of elegance and escape. Originally built as a luxury resort, it offered wealthy travelers fresh mountain air and grand amenities. Yet despite the brightness of its architecture and the charm of its hilltop setting, the Crescent Hotel harbors one of the darkest pasts in American folklore.
 
In 1937, the building was purchased by Norman G. Baker, a conman and self-proclaimed doctor who operated a sham cancer hospital out of its walls. Promising miraculous cures through bogus injections and unproven treatments, Baker lured hundreds of suffering patients into his care, many of whom would never leave. His “hospital” was in truth a carefully constructed façade, much like the sunny exterior of the hotel itself.
 
He was ultimately convicted of mail fraud in 1940, but the emotional and physical toll of his deception remains etched in the hotel’s history.
 
If you want to learn more about Norman Baker and his various crimes, head over to our Lantern Light blog post here.
 
Despite the postcard-perfect appearance, the Crescent Hotel is widely regarded as America’s Most Haunted Hotel. Ghost stories cling to its halls like ivy—accounts of spectral nurses, ghostly guests, and the persistent presence of Norman Baker himself. The very contrast between its welcoming face and haunted soul is what makes the Crescent so alluring—and so unsettling.
 
The crescent moon statue, cheerful and whimsical, stands like a guardian at the gate, smiling, while the shadows of Baker's victims whisper from just behind the windows.