If there’s one town in Arkansas that feels haunted before you’ve even heard a single ghost story, it’s Eureka Springs. The whole place is built into the side of a mountain — twisting streets, Victorian buildings stacked on top of each other, fog rolling through the hollows at night. It looks like a ghost story. And it turns out, a lot of people think it is one.
Eureka Springs has more haunted history packed into a few square miles than just about anywhere in the state. Here are five of the most haunted places in town, and why people keep coming back to get spooked.
1. The 1886 Crescent Hotel
You can’t talk about haunted Eureka Springs without starting here. The Crescent Hotel sits at the top of the hill and has been called “America’s Most Haunted Hotel,” and it earned the title the hard way.
In the 1930s the old resort was bought by Norman Baker, a man with no medical training who ran a fake “cancer hospital” out of the building. A lot of his patients died there. Today guests report a stonemason named Michael in Room 218, a former patient named Theodora in Room 419, and a nurse pushing a gurney down the third-floor hallway.
We wrote a whole piece on it — read the full story of the 1886 Crescent Hotel if you haven’t yet.
2. The 1905 Basin Park Hotel
Just down the hill in the middle of downtown sits the Basin Park Hotel, built in 1905. It’s a town landmark, and it’s got plenty of ghost stories of its own.
Guests and staff have reported strange noises, footsteps in empty hallways, and the feeling of someone standing just behind them. With more than a century of guests passing through, it’s collected the kind of reputation that brings ghost hunters back year after year. The hotel even leans into it with its own haunted history events.
3. The streets of downtown
Here’s the thing about Eureka Springs — you don’t have to go inside a building to feel it. The downtown historic district is one big maze of Victorian storefronts, stone staircases, and narrow alleys that have barely changed in over a hundred years.
Walk it at night, after the shops close and the fog settles in, and you’ll understand why so many of the town’s ghost tours just take you through the streets. Half the experience is the town itself.
4. The Eureka Springs cemetery
Every old town has its cemetery, and Eureka Springs is no exception. The hillside graves here date back to the 1800s, and visitors have long reported the usual cemetery encounters — cold spots, shadows moving between the stones, the sense of being watched.
It’s a quiet, beautiful spot in the daytime and a genuinely eerie one at dusk. If you go, go respectfully — these are real people’s resting places, not a haunted attraction.
5. The ghost tours themselves
Eureka Springs has practically turned ghost hunting into a local industry, and that’s a big part of why it makes lists like this. The Crescent Hotel runs nightly tours through its history and old morgue, and several companies run walking tours through the downtown streets.
Are they spooky because the town is haunted, or is the town “haunted” because everyone’s been told to look for ghosts? That’s the fun of it. Either way, you’ll leave looking over your shoulder.
Planning a trip?
Eureka Springs is about an hour and a half from Bentonville and Fayetteville — an easy weekend trip from anywhere in Northwest Arkansas, and never better than in the fall. Book a room at the Crescent or the Basin Park if you really want to commit to the bit.
Been to Eureka Springs and seen something you can’t explain? We’d love to hear it — share your story with us here at Spooky NWA.