There are a lot of places that claim to be the most haunted in America, but only the Crescent hotel has the pedigree to back up that claim. The building has been a Victorian-era resort, a private school, a sanatorium straight out of a horror movie, a women's college and more recently, a movie star thanks to numerous documentaries including an episode of Ghost Hunters.

The Crescent Hotel looks like the perfect setting for a ghost story. It's a five story Victorian Gothic with balconies, thick stone walls and overhangs. It sits high on a mountain overlooking Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In this climate, it's a small wonder that rumors of hauntings date back to the very moment it opened.

In the early 1880's when the hotel was constructed, the Ozark Mountains were experiencing a tourist boom. At the time, it was believed that the spring waters, so abundant to the region, had curative powers. The legacy of that belief still exists in the names of towns like Eureka Springs and Siloam Springs.

The hotel earned its first ghost during construction, when Michael, an Irish stonemason working on the hotel, fell from the roof and landed in the second floor area. The place where he landed, now room 218, is said to be the most haunted room in the building.

The hotel was an instant success from the time that it opened, drawing tourists from across the nation to enjoy the beauty of the Ozarks and imbibe the supposedly healing properties of the spring waters. However, interest in the area as a vacation destination died off once people realized that the waters had no curative properties.

Over the next few years the hotel began a gradual slide into disrepair before being turned into a a girls school and then a women's college. It was during this time that rumors of hauntings multiplied. Usually the ghosts were attached to stories of wayward girls and lovelorn young women who had either hung themselves or thrown themselves from the balconies in a fit of depression.

But the real horror was yet to come.

In 1937, Norman Baker leased the building with the intention of turning it into a health resort. Baker was a charismatic man who thought of himself as a medical expert. Through a nationally-broadcast radio show, Baker claimed to have discovered the cure for a laundry list of ailments, including cancer.

This would be the second health resort that Baker ran. The first, in Muscatine, Iowa, was closed down by the authorities. Undaunted, Baker moved his patients to his new resort in Eureka Springs and advertised his resort with the claim that he had saved patients lives without using X-rays or operations.

The patients who went to Baker for help found only disappointment and death.

And while records show that no one died due to Baker's treatments (which mostly consisted of spring water and ground watermelon seeds) their suffering was drawn out while they submitted to Baker's treatments rather than seeking true medical care.

Eventually, Baker was arrested on charges of mail fraud. And while authorities believe he was nothing more than a quack and a con man, locals tell a different story.

Baker, they say, liked to experiment on his patients – both living and dead. One of his more gruesome treatments – according to rumor – was to peel back the patient's scalp and pour his curative directly into the patient's brain. According to legend, dozens of patients died from this treatment.

Supposedly, when the hotel was later renovated, workmen found skeletons hidden within the walls. To this day, local legends say that there are preserved body parts – hidden so well that even the hotel's current owners haven't been able to find them.

After renovations, when the hotel was opened to tourists, thestaff received frequent reports of ghostly activity.. Hotel guests, particularly guests in room 218, report being shaken awake at night. Others have seen a silent man, dressed in Victorian clothing, sitting forlornly in the bar area.

The hotel once had an antique switchboard in the basement, but it was disconnected after it had been left off the hook by an unknown prankster one too many times. Locking the basement doors didn't seem to help. Although the staff thought they had fooled a human jokester, the switchboard continued to signal to the front desk that it had been left off the hook.

Even more troublesome, the staff members who went to reset the switchboard reported feeling that they were not alone in the basement. Some refused to go down to reset the switchboard again.Eventually the hotel simply removed it.

Other ghosts frequently seen by guests include Dr. Baker, who has been seen in the first floor stairway and one of his nurses who wanders the third floor hallway pushing a gurney. Some guests report being shaken awake at night, or hearing the sounds of unseen children.

In room 419, guests and housekeepers alike have reported seeing a woman who introduces herself as a cancer patient before vanishing.

What makes the hotel such a hotbed of spectral activity? Some say that the high energy contained in the mineral waters of the underground spring that runs beneath the hotel attracts the ghosts. Others say that the stories were cooked up to draw in tourists and revive interest in the old hotel.

Whichever you believe, the ghosts have put the hotel on the national radar, thanks to documentaries and shows like Ghost Hunters.

The hotel offers ghost tours nightly, seven days a week. And hotel guests and visitors are welcome to wander the halls and decide for themselves.