Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Haunted Hospital - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 29, 2026

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Haunted Hospital - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 29, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's Dothan
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  campus, identifying and preserving historical documents and photographs
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  for research related to the Wiregrass region. More information
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  at troy.edu/wiregrassarchives.
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  From Troy Public Radio,
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  this is In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  Dr. Jocelyn Cullity has visited Eureka Springs,
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  Arkansas many times. And as director
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  of creative writing at the University of South Alabama,
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  she was intrigued by the 1939 story
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  of Baker Hospital. Its charismatic Dr.
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  Baker publicized on the radio that he had a cure for
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  cancer, and the scandal that ensued became
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  a notorious court case. Jocelyn Cullody
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  joins us to talk about her historical novel,
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  The Nurse at Baker Hospital, and how the property
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  has become America's Most Haunted Hotel.
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  Dr. Cullity, welcome to Troy Public Radio.
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  Thank you, Carolyn. Great to be here. You have written a
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  fascinating historical novel about a
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  story you stumbled across at a writers' conference.
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  Well, if you go to Eureka Springs, this little town set
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  high up in the Ozarks, you will find the Crescent Hotel,
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  which is deemed the most haunted hotel in America.
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  I used to go to Eureka Springs because they had a wonderful writers' colony
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  at Dairy Hollow, it's called, there. And the owner of the
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  hotel, Elise Roenick, came down one night and told us about
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  this story about Norman Baker, who had
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  taken over the hotel in the 1930s for a
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  brief period for his infamous hospital. I noticed
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  in the book there was a sign at Baker Hospital that said,
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  quote, Cancer Is Curable.
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  Yes. And while I was starting to write the book,
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  they actually found in 2019 more
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  than 400 sealed bottles and jars that they discovered
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  behind the Crescent Hotel in some soil.
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  And those bottles are said to have come from a
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  morgue at Norman Baker's Hospital and held apparently cancer
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  tumors and other body tissue. The man purported
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  to have the cure for cancer, and he has now become
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  America's king of the quacks. What was Norman Baker's background?
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  He was not a doctor. He had no medical training whatsoever.
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  He was an extraordinarily gifted showman. He was born
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  in Iowa, and he worked in vaudeville, toured with a mind reader
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  named Madame Pearl Tangley for a while. He invented a musical
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  instrument called the air calliophone. He ran mail-order businesses,
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  and eventually he became a pioneer of radio.
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  He understood the enormous power of mass media and
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  how he could connect with ordinary Americans.
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  Can you describe the Baker Hospital, which is now the Crescent
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  Hotel? The hospital had at the time 100
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  rooms. It's a beautiful old Victorian building that towers
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  above the town of Eureka Springs, and there
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  are reported to be ghosts that have come from different eras at the
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  hotel, but certainly some of them are reported to have come
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  from Norman Baker's time. It's a hotel hotel that still runs
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  today. But at the time, it brought flocks of Americans
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  from 1937 till 1939,
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  1940 perhaps, because Norman Baker said
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  that he could cure cancer without surgery, X-rays, or radium.
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  And so patients came from all over the United States and from Canada.
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  What he used to, quote, cure cancer, a natural
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  ingredient tea, And then of all things,
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  carbolic acid. And you state in the book
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  that he was trying to keep these patients alive long
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  enough to get their money. That is correct.
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  And his radio station had an enormous reach. It reportedly
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  reached all the way to Alaska, all the way across the country.
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  And he liked to tell people that he had this cure.
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  So he spoke to people on the radio across the country,
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  and he liked to tell people that he never had a death. They didn't need
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  to be burned up with radium. They didn't need to be carved up by surgeons.
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  He said that he had the cure in
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  especially 2 injections, number 4 and number 5,
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  which were various mixtures that only he
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  knew what was in those mixtures. That's what was said at
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  the court case that ran in Little Rock, the longest running court case in
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  Little Rock at the time. So how did he end up in court?
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  The postal authorities in the town were really
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  onto him. Because he would send magazines to every doorstep
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  in the country saying that he had the cure for cancer.
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  And they wanted to know at the post office, did he really
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  have a cure or was this for real? So it was the Postal
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  Service in the United States that finally brought him down and was able
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  to get him tried for his claim that he had a cure for cancer.
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  I noticed in the book that there were 14 days of court proceedings.
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  Some of the witnesses thought they had been cured. Yes.
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  And this was what made it a very difficult case.
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  Patients were chased down all over the country to see if they were still alive
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  after they left the hospital. The federal government was very keen
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  to put him out of service, as was the AMA,
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  who had received thousands of complaints against
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  him. But yes, some people believed in him. In fact,
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  when he was busted, 50% of the town of Eureka
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  Springs believed he was for real and 50% believed he was a
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  con artist. When the money was traced,
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  some $3 million were unaccounted
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  for. And that is still a part of the lore of Eureka
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  Springs. Where is that money? Some people think it's hidden in a cave deep
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  in the Ozarks. Some people think that he lived off of
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  it for the rest of his life after he went to jail.
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  He did definitely make a lot of money from this
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  claim of a cure for cancer. Chapter 38, the first
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  paragraph. Would you read what happened to that government case?
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  Sure. On the final day of the government's case, a clerk
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  from Morton's Funeral Home revealed their records showing
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  40 dead patients had been picked up from the morgue at Baker Hospital.
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  Dr. Williams had signed the death certificates. Those who'd spent
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  all their money on treatment and couldn't afford to be sent home were buried in
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  the potter's field in Eureka Springs. The spectators
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  drew in a collective breath. This is shocking.
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  Oh yeah. What were the qualifications of the doctors at Baker Hospital?
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  Some of them had had very short stints in terms of
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  training, and some of them had not gone to the best schools.
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  He could not be busted if the court felt that
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  he believed and the doctors believed in
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  their cure. If they believed in their cure, the feds could
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  not bust him. And so that was at the crux of the whole case.
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  In the court case, it came to light that those that thought they
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  had been cured could not really convince the court that they had
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  cancer to begin with. When you stayed in Eureka Springs,
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  what were some of the stories you heard about what is now the
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  Crescent Hotel? Some people have felt a whoosh of
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  cold air and a gurney squeaking going down the
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  hall of the 3rd floor after midnight. And I based
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  my protagonist on this ghost to some extent. And then there are 2
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  other ghosts. One is named Theodora. She's the most famous ghost at the Crescent
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  Hotel, and apparently she's a very nitpicky head nurse who
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  does not like untidy guests. And if you are
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  an untidy guest, she can appear to you in the night and ask you
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  to pack your bags and leave. And the third ghost is a
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  woman who screams in about the place that Baker's Insane
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  Asylum was. And so I put all 3 of those ghosts in
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  the book into different characters. What happened to Norman
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  Baker? He was sent to jail for what people
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  felt was a really short amount of time, given what he had done.
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  And he then lived on a boat off Miami on
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  his earnings for the rest of his life. He finally was diagnosed
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  with cancer himself and apparently sought conventional treatment.
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  Jocelyn, thank you for writing this page-turner. Are you
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  available for public appearances? Yes,
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  absolutely I am. Thank you so much for having me, Carolyn.
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  It's been a real pleasure. That was Dr. Jocelyn Cullity
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  and her historical novel is The Nurse at Baker
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  Hospital. She can be reached at her website,
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  jocelyncullity.com. Thanks for joining
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  us today for In Focus, which is a podcast
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  wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to get in touch
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  at infocus@troy.edu.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported
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  Troy Public Radio.