Latest / Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast / 89. [Arkansas] The Crescent Hotel

Transcript

89. [Arkansas] The Crescent Hotel · Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast

0:21
Well, Na, bless this messaging for Crump Podcast. I don't care here,
0:24
what's dousa? He's do right? All right, So we are back.
0:27
We are here this week. I remember last last episode we said we
0:30
might not be here, but we are here, and we're doing like a
0:32
special episode because we're going on a little trip up to Arkansas and we're going
0:40
to be We're gonna be up in northern Arkansas, so we're going to we're
0:44
gonna do a little side detour and go to Eureka Springs and stay at the
0:50
Crescent Hotel, which, if some of you might know, it's one of
0:54
the most supposedly one of the most haunted hotels in America. And so I
1:00
was like, well, maybe we'll just do a whole episode about the big
1:04
murders that happened there and we'll just talk about that. So it's a little
1:08
bit different than our regular episodes, but it's still murder. It's still yes,
1:15
like our things says, murder, mayhem, and mystery with a Southern
1:19
twist. We mainly focus on murder, but tonight we're gonna do mystery.
1:23
We're gonna do mayhem and murder. So yeah, we'll we'll get into that.
1:29
Um, if you would like to support the podcast, rate review,
1:34
subscribe, Yeah, go go go write us a review or rate us or
1:38
whatever it's been slacking here lately. Well, all that the original listeners that
1:44
have been with us for quite some time, Yeah, have stepped up,
1:46
because we have forty or fifty reviews that are just recycled where they they rewrote
1:52
them and oh tell us that they that they're happy we came back. Yes,
1:57
so they've been about forty or fifty of those. Okay, well,
2:00
anyways, you're not helping my arguments doing to tell them to go review us.
2:06
Well, we need new reviews anyway, so go do that. Also
2:10
follow us on the Facebook, the Instagram, UM, I do all sorts
2:15
of things on their book club of house stuff. Um this Oh yeah,
2:22
definitely fallow this time because we're gonna be posting. So this episode comes out
2:27
on the Thursday, and that's the day we check into the hotel. Can
2:31
we ever leave? Can we check in anytime we want, but you can't
2:35
check out? Um, so that's when. So we're gonna I'm gonna be
2:38
posting a bunch of stuff from the hotel, all of our stuff from the
2:40
hotel. When when we go on the um the tour down to the more
2:46
of all this stuff. So yeah, go check us out there that way
2:49
you can see everything. And then, um, we have our Patreon,
2:53
Patreon dot com slash Bless this Mess podcast. You can support the podcast there.
2:59
It's just for gen real support. Appreciate. We appreciate everybody who's signed
3:02
up. It'll get you early access and um and add free. Anyways.
3:09
Yeah, so we really appreciate everybody there. So go check that out,
3:13
all right. And I guess anything else you'd like to adds to I wouldn't,
3:16
all right, So with the uh, let's go, let's go.
3:22
I was gonna say without further ado, but I feel like that sounds so
3:24
stupid, and I say it a lot, and so I don't want to
3:27
say that anymore. So I'm trying to train me not to say it.
3:30
You want me to train you to say no, you may have battery and
3:38
what is wrong with you? Shut up? Anyways? All right, So
3:44
Norman ge Baker was born, So this is gonna be a little bit different
3:46
because everybody this is kind of a I did have fun looking into this one
3:52
because it was a lot of history and things like that. So This is
3:54
going to be more from the perspective of going through the life of the man
3:58
who did all this, because it's kind of interesting. So Norman G.
4:01
Baker was born November twenty seventh, eighteen eighty two. Guys, we're going
4:05
way back in Muscatine, Iowa. Do you think that's how they pronounced it?
4:11
Quite possible? Well, because isn't there musketine wine. I don't know
4:15
what that is, okay um Musketine Iowa. To John and Francis Baker.
4:19
He was the last of ten children with very impressive parents. His father,
4:25
John had patented one hundred and twenty six inventions, and his mother had been
4:29
a writer prior to Mary and having children. I mean, she had ten
4:31
children. I mean, what else is there? You can't have another job?
4:34
What she couldn't keep writing? Stewart, No, No, ten children
4:41
in her and her husband's all like inventing stuff. She's at the homestead,
4:45
she's keeping everybody alive. She ain't got time to write, dear diary.
4:48
Child birth was tough. Oh my god. Anyways, Norman started his career
4:53
as an inventor. It's probably pretty I'm saying it's pretty impressed. She was
4:56
a writer in that day and age, because back then a lot of women
4:59
didn't even do anything. I mean they did stuff. Don't come at me,
5:03
I'm saying, in the workforce. So anyways, so uh, Norman
5:11
started his career as an inventor like his father, and he started started a
5:15
company called Tangley Company, which manufactured Tangley Automatic air calliope. Now the calliope
5:21
was a modification of a steam organ. He made it mobile, so it
5:26
was a big hit at the fair grounds and circuses. He just like ride
5:30
around with this little do it. He's ride around barn, you know,
5:35
like that, all around these fairs. I mean this is very Yeah,
5:42
it's just like the monkeys in Masha and the Bear. So um, I
5:46
bet I bet they got this from him, you know, um becoming familiar
5:49
with fairs and circuses through his calliope. In nineteen oh four, he began
5:54
traveling with his own troope trope trope, I think it's a pronounced rope with
6:00
the fair troop okay whatever, troop and performed as a I do I know
6:04
words, people, I do know how to pronounce things, and I did
6:09
write all this start anyways troop and performed as a mentalist and a mentalist is
6:15
a performer who appears to have abilities such as hypnosis, telepathy, and mind
6:21
control. Stop it, yes, and he's mesmerized by he was he ran
6:28
into a mentalist or came across a mentalist one time, and he was like
6:30
mesmerized by the fact that I think he probably as we go through this guy,
6:34
you know, you can tell he's like a bullshitter, so I think
6:38
he could recognize that and somebody else and he's like, I think I could
6:41
do that too. It makes the money. So anyway, so after meeting
6:45
a woman on the fair circuit, he married and came back to Muscatine to
6:48
settle down there. He began opening businesses like in art school and a mail
6:54
order business. I don't know what he did with his mail order business,
6:57
but that's what they called it. And all of his ventures like he was.
7:00
He was. He had this Tangley company, like we said, and
7:03
he's just opening businesses left and right, like yeah, i'll do that,
7:06
I'll do that, I'll do that jack of all trades and all those ventures
7:10
were bringing in around three hundred thousand dollars per year, which is equivalent to
7:14
three million dollars in today's money. He wasn't playing, he was he was
7:17
doing things. Yeah, he wasn't making some big money. Yeah. By
7:21
nineteen twenty four, Norman was ready to try his hand at another burgeoning field,
7:27
and that was radio broadcasting. He convinced the town of Muscatine to permit
7:33
a station in town, and in November of nineteen twenty five he started his
7:39
station kat NT. Kat NT stood for no the Naked Truth. He used
7:45
his calipee as his sign on say Galio by callio, well know, the
7:50
Naked Truth or whatever. It was very controversial that those were his call letters
7:55
because it was kind of risk a like no the Naked Truth. You know,
7:59
back in the day, you know, I don't know. I wasn't
8:01
there even though you've Contrary to what you may think, No, but no
8:05
the neked Truth, the Naked Truth and whatnot. Yeah. Now he built
8:11
a station on top of a hill, along with a gift shop, restaurant,
8:13
and an excursion boat on the nearby lake. And he also had a
8:18
six pump gas station built. Yeah. So even with his radio station,
8:22
he's always trying to figure out how he can make more money. This is
8:26
his whole stick. Sounds like me, what what you don't ever follow through
8:31
with any of it, though, No, what I followed through lots of
8:37
things, Stuart. Remember that time I made dresses, Yeah, idea with
8:41
pockets, with pockets. I sold like seventy five of those things I was
8:46
doing. Really, Yeah, there's seventy five people out in the world right
8:50
now that own a dress that I created or used to. Yeah, they
8:54
probably there's seventy five good wills in this country address that I created but then
9:01
didn't fall Aparton washers. No, no, oh no, these are handmade
9:05
quality stitching anyways. No, he was always trying to figure out how he
9:11
could make a book. You know, you kids one stop shop up there.
9:15
Oh yeah, so yeah. So he was even supposedly offering the lowest
9:18
prices around town at his gas station in store, so he'd get everybody to
9:24
waste all that gasoline drive and appeal a philip up there with their cheap gas.
9:28
But they didn't realize that they burned more fuel driving up the hill to
9:31
get there. Then they didn't think that through within while they're they're like,
9:35
let's go to this boat ride, this bat ride, go shopping. Yeah.
9:39
Now, Old Norman also frequently violated his broadcast license he seems like a
9:45
rule follower. I can't imagine you think. Now, kt kt NT was
9:50
only licensed to broadcast at five thousand lots, but Norman would often boost the
9:54
signal to about ten thousand. He'd always just seemed to double it. And
10:00
since the station was on top of a hill, he or his employees could
10:03
see if an FCC inspector was on their way up to hill, and they
10:07
just simply dial it back down to the proper wattage before the inspector arrived.
10:13
Now, I'm not against somebody doing a little something to the government that's trying
10:18
to like keep the man down. You know, they're always trying to mess
10:22
it. I know. Now, his radio station was reaching about fifty thousand
10:28
people. Now this translated into more business for him, and he was making
10:33
about three thousand dollars or forty five thousand dollars in today's money on a single
10:39
Sunday in the summertime. Yeah. So, so Sundays in the summertime where
10:45
the big days where people would go up there and hang out, hang out,
10:48
shop all that stuff. His boat. Yeah, and he was raking,
10:52
I mean, just killing it bringing it in and they come there.
10:56
He was you know, he was becoming a star, you know, when
10:58
he had the good he had the good voice voice for radio, you know,
11:01
like us. Yeah, and because he was he had had all that
11:05
practice at the fairs and the circuses, like talking to people, and he
11:09
had that booming good radio voice. Now, Norman he was an advocate for
11:16
the independent stations like his own. And at first when I read this,
11:20
well, I mean, I know how the story ends, so I wasn't
11:22
too high up on this old Norman guy. But I was like, oh,
11:24
well, he's like really, you know, wants to support the little
11:28
guy. But you know what, Norman's an opportunists. So since he was
11:33
an independent station, he's for the independent stations. But I guarantee if he
11:37
was big was a shareholder in AT and t'd be like, he's like these
11:43
are these are ridiculous? I don't know what these anyway. So speaking of
11:46
AT and T, he was even rallying against AT and T, who had
11:50
a monopoly on radio station transmitters. I don't think they were called AT and
11:54
T back then in this realm, but they've been around a long time.
11:58
That's been an AT and T ever since the beginning of time, I know,
12:01
But I thought I had read that they were The portion of the company
12:05
that owned the transmitters was a different subsidiary of but it was AT and T.
12:09
So he worked his way so that he you know, he's rolling against
12:13
AT and T and everything that. So he works his way up in the
12:16
broadcasting world to even become the president of the American Broadcasters Association for a short
12:20
time. Now, Norman was controversial. He used his station to launch political
12:24
attacks and basically get into it with anyone. He just if he saw something,
12:31
he just start talking mad shit about him and just start whatever they were
12:35
for he was against, just to like, yeah, he he just you
12:41
know, start getting into it people and it would bring up his numbers more
12:45
people would listen. So this also led to many libel suits in his lifetime.
12:50
He also published a magazine and became the president of a publishing company.
12:54
This is a guy's like done at alls due he traveled in his calliope and
12:58
he would speak at events denouncing things like vaccinations and aluminum cookware, saying they
13:03
caused cancer. Now, his anti vax ranting even set off a ward that
13:11
was titled cow war and I'm not I'm not making this up. Now,
13:16
this Cow War was there was an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis in the Midwest,
13:22
and he claimed that the newly mandated TV testing of cattle was really a conspiracy
13:28
theory by veterinarians. He claimed that the veterinarians would falsify positive test results in
13:33
order to steal then sell perfectly healthy cattle because they would test them. If
13:39
they were positive, they say, we need to take these cattle in.
13:41
Yeah, they were stealing. They might have been I don't know. He
13:43
might have been right. The cow war might have been legitimate. So with
13:48
this theory, he convinced enough ranchers that this was happening, that this is
13:52
true, that these veterinarians are doing this, and so they started running these
13:56
veterinarians out of town. They would use violence, intimidation, whatever, instead
14:01
of submitting to these TV tests, and so the cow war was only stopped
14:05
when the governor actually had to. He sent in a state militia to stop
14:09
this. So this Norman Baker, he's he's behind this cow war that that
14:13
broke out. Ah, he might be all right, he's always trying to
14:16
steal your cows and whatnot. Yeah, we're starting to sell against We are
14:24
only if it doesn't come true, we take your tin hat off. Ste
14:26
No. Now, in nineteen thirty, Norman opened his first hospital. Okay,
14:33
one would think, why is he opening a hospital. Yeah, well
14:37
it's the Baker Institute of Mucatone Muscati Muata. Now he based his practice around
14:45
US post care for cancer, among other ailments that consisted of corn, silk,
14:50
watermelon seeds, clover water, and carbolic acid. Now he took this
14:54
mixture and then he injected it into the patients. Now to just too,
15:01
I don't want to say circle back, but to circle back, I ain't
15:05
no circle back girl. Anyways, the reason he was able to open this
15:09
hospital because obviously we never mentioned he went to school to be a doctor.
15:13
And this wasn't the time period where you did have to be you know,
15:16
you did have to go to school. This wasn't pre where you just said
15:20
I'm a doctor and everybody was just like, okay, that sounds great.
15:22
This you actually had to be trained, So, I mean it wasn't great
15:24
training, but you know trained. But he had a kind of like a
15:30
quack on his staff that was an actual MD that's had the letters behind his
15:37
name, so that they could open this and he was like on the side,
15:39
but he's the one that thought this mixture was going to work injecting it.
15:45
Yeah. Now, in the trials for the drug, they tested it
15:48
on five people and all five people were miraculously cured. I'll wait now,
15:52
five people died. They all died. Now. It was also very expensive
15:58
treatment and it ran about it thousand dollars each time a person and got this
16:03
treatment. Yea. And he would charge exams at about ten dollars a pop.
16:08
And every patient that had a bad diagnosis and well, every patient had
16:17
a diagnosis of being positive for cancer and they will not cancer. Other elements
16:22
to the treatment treated cancer as well as it wasn't. It was a cure
16:26
all elixir. And he would have different numbers and stuff. He'd say,
16:30
oh, this is cure number five and da da da da. So they
16:33
were all prescribed the treatment that he had providing that they could pay for.
16:37
So exactly what he said that the veterinarians were doing in the cow war,
16:41
that they were just saying they were positive so they could take the cows.
16:45
He's doing this now and saying everybody's positive for whatever so that they can The
16:49
only cure is his his elixir. So he's doing exactly so he's not there.
16:56
There isn't a virtuous bone in his body. He didn't any of this
17:00
stuff because he actually believes any of this stuff, he would have been the
17:04
one taken the cows. He just like, oh, why didn't I think
17:07
of that? Now. He also used his radio station to promote the cure,
17:11
while at the same time denouncing doctors, saying that the MD in their
17:17
title stood for more dough because they were basically selling whatever and collecting dough and
17:22
he had the real cure. Yeah. Now, meanwhile, he was driving
17:26
around a custom Franklin roadster with air conditioning, and he used to wear a
17:32
purple custom purple suits, dripping in diamonds and gold. Yes, his favorite
17:37
color was purple at Lilac's purples like he was Willie walking. Yeah, So
17:42
I looked up the Franklin Roadster. Pretty nice little car. Yeah, sold
17:47
anywhere between twenty five to thirty two hundred dollars at the time, with a
17:51
custom being as much as seventy two hundred dollars back in the day, which
17:56
would be some major money. Yeah, especially since you could buy Ford Model
18:00
A in nineteen twenty eight for about five hundred dollars. Okay, and that
18:06
was expensive at the time. Okay, okay, what if you just want
18:10
me to move on. I think this is great, Stuart. I think
18:12
you're contributing. I think you have, but you don't give two shits about
18:17
these cars. I was tuning you out anyways. Okay, fine. Now,
18:21
when the American Medical Association wrote an article and published it in their journal
18:25
accusing Norman of quackery, and that was the word they used, he in
18:30
turn called the AMA Amateur Meat Cutters Association. Norman claimed that the AMA tried
18:37
to buy his cancer cure for one million dollars to get it off the market
18:42
so they could perform more surgeries and keep the old which you call it,
18:48
going the what oh, they're doing the same thing right now. They say
18:52
that there's a cure for cancer, but the but they make too much money
18:56
on treatment of the symptoms than just by curing the cancer. Because this has
19:03
been going on forever. Well, yeah, there's a cure. Are people
19:07
out there that think that that there's a cure for cancer out there, but
19:10
they're keeping it at bay because they want to keep making all the money off
19:12
the treatment. Yeah. But he also believed that old doctors just want to
19:18
cut people open. That's their whole thing, and so they believe he believed
19:21
they just wanted to cut people open and cut the cancer out because they didn't
19:23
obviously didn't know how really how to treat it. And he just want to
19:26
shoot people up with carbolic acid, yes, because it'll eat it away,
19:30
I guess, yes. Now to try and garner sympathy for himself, Norman
19:33
claimed that the hospital was shot at, but when police investigated, they determined
19:40
one of his cohorts actually shot at the hospital. The state of Iowa started
19:45
the process to stop Norman's practice, but in the meantime, he held large
19:49
gatherings where he would hold the curings and administer injections and sell other items to
19:56
tens of thousands of people. So he had a little revival going on for
20:02
the elixir or something god. Yeah, and they would just come and come
20:04
to him, and then he just started injecting people and just breaking in the
20:07
cash. And yeah, he had his whole like a almost get it again.
20:14
Well yeah, but scamming people, I'm sure. Yeah, there's lots
20:15
of people. I mean, if you're good at it, people, the
20:18
modern the modern pyramid scheme, the modern or MLM multi multi level marketing.
20:26
Hey what I got some stuff? I need people to buy it? Sign
20:30
on as a distributor. Yeah. In nineteen thirty one, the Iowa Supreme
20:33
Court put a stop to Norman's practice. They also shut down his radio station
20:37
due to all the quote venomous up scene broadcasts against public interests, so he
20:44
is public enemy number one. He tried to find patience to testify on his
20:48
behalf, but they were all too sick or dead. So like he's like,
20:52
hey, I got some people that could come testify, and he's like,
20:56
oh he's dead. Oh he's dead. Oh shit. Norman just never
21:00
showed up in court because he didn't have anybody to testify for him. So
21:04
he ended up hiding out in Mexico. But finally in nineteen thirty seven,
21:08
he returned to Iowa and served one day in jail and paid a fifty dollars
21:12
fine for a contempt of court. He proceeded to appeal that fine, which
21:17
made it to the US Supreme Court, where it was denied. He took
21:19
this all the way up, he said Iowa. He said I will be
21:23
vindicated, and they were like nope, nope. In nineteen thirty two,
21:27
he ran for governor of Iowa under the Prairie Populism Party, whose platform was
21:33
that common people I don't think it was a party, but it was a
21:37
movement, Prairie populism. So don't be going back like there was no Prairie
21:40
Populism party. I get that. I'm saying that the movement was Prairie populism.
21:45
So their platform was that common people were being exploited by monopolies. Now,
21:52
in nineteen thirty three, he began another radio station, this time out
21:55
of Mexico. So he ran off to Mexico. For all those years he
21:59
was out down there working his harm paying and that I guess. Yeah.
22:04
So it was called xe NT in Nuevo Laredo on the Rio Grand and he
22:11
used this radio station to promote promote his new hospital he had opened in Nuevo
22:15
Laredo that began that again promoted his previous cure, all the whole corn silk
22:21
carbolic acid thing that he was injecting people with. Eventually, though, he
22:25
did get tired of being in Mexico. I guess he wanted to try something
22:27
new, and so he set his sights on the grand old state of Arkansas.
22:33
Shut up. I know it's all coming full circles to it's all coming
22:37
full coming together now it is now. The Crescent Hotel was originally built in
22:44
eighteen eighty six at a cost of two hundred and ninety four thousand dollars or
22:48
eight point five million dollars in today's money. It operated as a luxury hotel
22:55
in the town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas for several years now. During the
23:00
construction of the hotel, an Irish immigrant worker fell to his death in what
23:07
is now Room two one eight. The spots outed the healing waters of the
23:11
springs in the Ozarks, and it entertained the rich and famous, but eventually
23:15
they ran out of money and they could not continue to operate. After falling
23:21
into disrepair, the hotel reopened in nineteen oh eight as the Crescent College and
23:25
Conservatory for Young Women. That's a mouthful. For sixteen years. This conservatory
23:32
would stay in business until it closed down in nineteen twenty four. During this
23:36
time, there was a young woman who did leap to her death from a
23:40
balcony, and I'm not sure what she was so distraught about. Well,
23:44
I think there was rumors that she was pregnant or something possibly at this conservatory,
23:49
and she didn't want to tell her parents, so she killed herself.
23:53
It did reopen in nineteen thirty as a junior college until nineteen thirty four,
23:59
and the hotel seemed pretty much doomed to fail and that straight would continue.
24:04
You know, I feel like it's like one of those you know, there's
24:07
all everybody every town has that restaurant in town that continually it's always something new,
24:15
and it's almost like it's a doomed spot. And Mike theory is the
24:18
only thing that's going to make it overcoming is like open at Chick fil A
24:22
or something in there. You know, that's the only thing that's going to
24:25
succeed in this building. We have we have some We have one for sure
24:32
up here that always it seems like every year or two it's something new.
24:37
But yeah, every single town. We had one in Lufkin that was it
24:40
was like just there's nothing wrong the spot. There are successful restaurants on either
24:45
side of this restaurant. It's just that building that is just not going to
24:48
make it. So we had one on the Ambassador, but thet it was
24:52
the one down there of Johnson straight. There was a bunch of different things.
24:56
Well, yeah, we had one in um one on in Lufkin on
25:00
the oh, shoot, I've done forgot the main road in Lufkin. Wow,
25:07
I know, it's been so long since I've been there. Shoot,
25:10
Timberland, So there was a one on Timberland. Like when you went around
25:12
and there was I remember if you were going heading south, it was on
25:17
the left side of the road and it was it was everything. It was
25:21
Mexican restaurant, Chinese restaurant, American restaurant, everything, and could never make
25:25
it. So anyways, the Crescent Hotel is that is that restaurant in town.
25:27
So in nineteen thirty seven, Norman purchased the Crescent for forty thousand dollars
25:32
and promised the town of Eureka Springs that he would revive their economy with his
25:36
new hospital, bringing in patience from all over the country. So again,
25:40
this is way back when nobody's like checking Facebook, like this guy has terrible
25:45
reviews over here in Iowa that he did this. Nobody's worried about that.
25:48
They just know, Oh, he told him about all the stuff he's done
25:52
somewhere else, and they don't really have any way to check this, just
25:55
show it up out of nowhere with a pocket. Yeah, and they need
25:56
money. There are in dire straits. This is the only the only town
26:00
only had the big hotel. If you've ever been, I've been to Eureka
26:03
Springs before, to the Crescent Hotel. But it's it's all it has,
26:08
you know. Anyway, So they welcomed him with open arms. And because
26:15
like I said, they needed a lifeline. They needed someone to come in
26:17
and save this town. And he's just throwing out dollar bills everywhere. So
26:22
Norman, he spent about fifty thousand dollars renovating the hotel into his hospital,
26:26
and he painted it in bright colors like the circus. He was obsessed with
26:30
these circus colors. But his main color that he painted it was his lavender
26:33
color. Like I said, he loved lavender, love purple. Now to
26:37
begin getting new patients, he ran a huge ad campaign speaking of the fresh
26:41
air and healing waters of Eureka Springs. His ads stated this is in quotes.
26:47
We cure cancer tumor without operation, radium or x X ray. We
26:52
treat all elements. We do not cut any organ Like he was like big
26:56
in these doctors like cutting people open. So he promised these waters would cure
27:00
cancer and heal all sorts of other elements. And soon after the ads went
27:03
out, people began showing up at the hospital, paying large amounts of money
27:07
for the treatments. He would inject his formulas four times a day, and
27:11
the people administering administering the injections referred to themselves as machine guns because they spent
27:18
all day just one after another because they had all these patients had to go
27:21
four times a day, so they'd just be injecting, injecting, injecting one
27:26
after another, just continually the whole entire day. Lord. Yeah, Now,
27:32
not long after opening, the staff started noticing Norman doing some suspicious things
27:37
like soundproofing and ceiling off an entire wing and placing a door that locked from
27:41
the outside on the entrance. He told them that it was the psychiatric wing,
27:48
but it was mainly for patients that weren't getting any better and they went
27:52
in there to basically die. Yeah, he was kind of hiding yet,
27:56
Yeah, he's kind of hiding these deaths. It's very more to h Tolms.
28:00
How he was, how he built his um. He didn't have a
28:04
hospital, though his was just kill kill house. Yeah. Now, not
28:10
everyone was sent to the special way. Sometimes he would declare that a patient
28:15
was cured and send them home, but they weren't really cured, and they
28:18
actually seemed to be worse off than when they actually entered the facility, and
28:23
they often died while traveling back home or shortly after arriving back. Yeah,
28:29
they said that someone would just die on the train, maybe going they leave,
28:33
it'd be like, you're good, you're good, trying to push him
28:34
out before they die. So he was basically either he was trying to hide
28:37
the people that were dying or if he's if he didn't have if he couldn't
28:41
do that, he was like okay, you're good, and he just like
28:44
get on the train, you're fine, it's good. It's good. Now.
28:48
No one in today's world seems to find this that surprising, since one
28:52
of the main ingredients in his ejections was carbolic acid, which causes organ failure.
28:59
So he was slowly killing these people faster than the cancer. Yeah.
29:03
I guess for some reason a well not even had cancer, some of them
29:06
just had other things among other elements. Yeah, I guess he just thought
29:10
that this acid would eat away whatever it was it. I don't know.
29:12
Well, that's the thing. Did he that's the question. Did he think
29:15
that it was doing something good? Yes? He could have been a just
29:19
a well question, because back in the nineteen forties, thirties and forties,
29:26
the Nazis were actually using this chemical to euthanize people in their concentration camps around
29:33
the same time. So I think it was known back then that this was
29:38
probably good damage. I don't think this was a unknown thing. I don't
29:45
know. I don't know if the people that were injecting them knew what was
29:48
in the cures. I think he's the only one that knew it was in
29:52
him. So you think that he came up with it, put it all
29:56
together, gave it to these other people. Well, he worked with the
29:57
note like I said, there's another doctor in this whole. There's an actual
30:00
doctor, and I used that lightly. He has an m d. And
30:04
he was the one that originally started these injections, and then the Norman guy
30:08
like I was like, oh, well we can do this, then we
30:11
can cure everything with this. Now. There are also rumors that he was
30:15
conducting experiments on patients in the basement and then he would quietly send the bodies
30:19
off to the crematorium to be burned so that there'd be no evidence. Yeah,
30:26
now that was all rumor though they didn't never that was never substantiated.
30:30
But I'm choosing to believe it so because he's just terrible and we're going there
30:36
and it's haunted, so I need stories. So all in all, forty
30:40
four people died during the twenty months the hospital was in operation. It was
30:42
finally shut down after Norman was arrested in nineteen thirty nine. And he wasn't
30:47
arrested for murder, not at all. This was fine. Everything he was
30:49
doing was, you know, great, well, he was helping people.
30:52
He was arrested for mail fraud, so his deceased patients family members claimed he
30:59
had defrauded them through his newsletter which came through the mail. He you know,
31:03
he had sent out those newsletters saying they can cure all the stuff,
31:04
and then they died and then he took money from them through the mail,
31:07
so it's mail fraud. Anyways, he took in around four million dollars dollars
31:11
during the hospitals operating months, and he had in the end, he had
31:17
a three week trial and was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and
31:21
had a four thousand dollars fine. Now, while he was in prison,
31:25
they began dividing up his assets to pay back his victims, and they found
31:29
that he had embezzled about one million dollars from his corporation and smuggled it off
31:33
to Mexico via his secretary. Now, he was never charged on these fir
31:38
embezzlement. They just like, Okay, that's fine, we don't care.
31:41
I don't care. This is real shady ship back then, you know,
31:45
just like, we don't really have time to deal with this. So after
31:48
his prison sentence, he made one last attempt to open a new hospital in
31:52
Iowa, but was denied, so this would have been his fourth hospital.
31:56
He ended up in Florida, living a pretty good life on his yall.
32:00
He was diagnosed with liver cancer, but ironically he did not choose to take
32:05
his own treatments. He's like, no, I'm good, he went to
32:08
the So at the end stages of it, he went to the Battle Creek
32:10
Sanitarium, where he died in nineteen fifty eight at the age of seventy five.
32:15
So he went to Battle Creek where the other quack was. That's what
32:22
that's the Kellogg, doctor Kellogg that was prescribing corn flakes as part of your
32:29
diet to cure everything. Yeah, that's how corn flakes came about. Oh
32:34
I didn't know that. Yeah, doctor Kellogg Kellogg serious Kellogg's corn flakes.
32:42
Yes, yes, So I'm guessing that this doctor Kellogg got him and I
32:45
was like, yeah, come up, Harry, some corn flakes, this
32:47
great diet and we'll get you. Oh. Battle Creek Sanitarium was the place
32:51
with the doctor Kelloggs selling the corn flakes. Well, Battle Creek, Michigan
32:54
is where they met Kelloggs. I'm assuming it's well, you know, yeah,
33:00
it makes an ass out of you and me. I could be totally
33:04
in correct, but you say Battle Creek, Michigan, and I'm like,
33:07
well, I said Battle Creek Sanitarium. There's only one Battle Creek I know,
33:12
that's Michigan. So you don't think there's another Battle Creek in the entire
33:15
world, in the entire world. Possibly, Okay, well, you keep
33:19
you you go on Battle Creek Sanitarium. I'm gonna guess it's We're gonna take
33:22
a pause and we're gonna look this up so we don't mislead you guys.
33:25
But I did not know that's about the Kellogg corn flakes, and that was
33:29
his cure for everything in the fact, well his cure, but it was
33:32
part of his diet to cure you from all these things. And it was
33:37
a scam. I don't know. We still have corn flakes today, Norman
33:45
Baker of carbolic acid. I mean, it's fine. I'm gonna say it's
33:49
probably a better treatment than his. Well, yeah, this is true,
33:52
all right, So we paused. We looked up. Yes, it's Battle
33:54
Creek, Michigan, and yes, that's where he went. But I guess
33:59
doctor Kellog wasn't He wasn't like a malicious doctor like the Norman Baker guy.
34:04
He just he just thought that these things. But it was like a holistic
34:08
approach to medicine, is what he was doing with spas and everything that.
34:12
So he operated this for quite some time. And then I did see that
34:16
the Battle Creek ended in nineteen fifty three, so he must have went there
34:19
for treatment. And then Norman went off someplace else to actually die in nineteen
34:23
fifty eight, but he did go I guess he would and tried the old
34:27
Kellogg treatment. He's probably seen if he could like get in on that.
34:30
You know, if this works, I can probably sell this. Yeah,
34:34
I'll get a radio station, newspapers. Actually, probably just doing research for
34:38
his next scam. Yes, the hotel did continue to go through various Oleanders
34:44
until in the nineteen seventies. People started to report in seeing things move on
34:50
their own and ghost sightings. The hotel did eventually get the reputation as the
34:55
most haunted hotel in America, and people came from all over to stay at
35:00
the hotel and hope to see a ghost, kind of like people going to
35:04
the Myrtles. Yes, now it is believed that I don't really want to
35:07
see a ghost of wine there. I'm too scared. You're not, because
35:10
they don't exist. Stewart, don't say that. You can't. I'm not.
35:14
I'm on the fence about them. But I'm not gonna say they don't
35:15
exist, because then that's when they start like poltergeisting you and stuff. Okay.
35:21
It is believed that the ghost stem from the Baker Cancer Hospital. Over
35:25
the years, many guests have reported ghost sightings and other paranormal activity, a
35:30
fact that was known to Marty and Elise. I'm gonna go with Rowan rowing
35:42
something. There's a lot of weird letters in there. When they bought the
35:45
hotel in nineteen ninety seven, as a result, they hired two certified mediums
35:51
to do a reading of the building. I don't believe these people either.
35:55
We're going there. I need you to be on board. Okay, I'm
35:59
on board, and we're going to get haunted and stabbed by a ghost.
36:01
Now. The mediums found that the hotel showed signs of being a portal to
36:06
the other side way these mediums really well, yes, as in a dimension
36:12
that holds Oh my god, and this portal can only be accessed by those
36:20
on the same frequency. People have reported seeing the ghost of Baker's patients,
36:28
as well as that of Morris, a beloved cat that used to live in
36:31
the hotel, and it is buried behind it. Oh, so we might
36:36
be able to see ghost cat. I mean, is it Morris the cat
36:37
that used to do uh the cat commercials? More's the cat, the orange
36:43
cat the friskies. Yeah, I think I don't think it was this cat.
36:46
Well, Morris the cat used to do it. Okay, I'm sure
36:49
there's more than one orange cat named Morris. I don't think it's the same
36:52
cat haunting the place. Well, it's a famous cat. Well, okay,
36:58
he's famous because he's haunted the hotel, not because he was on a
37:00
Frisky's commercial, the Cat on the Pack. Okay, we're not gonna we're
37:06
not gonna look this up. We gotta look this up. We're gonna have
37:08
to pause and look this up. No, we're not. Oh my god,
37:12
all right, somebody else paused, look this up and get back to
37:15
us. Now. In twenty seventeen, another death would occur in the hotel.
37:21
A man walked out of the bar called Doctor Baker's Lounge because they're really
37:23
like riding hard on the whole. Yeah, Norman, you got to sell
37:28
this hotel. And they they they're raking in the bucks. Let me tell
37:30
you it wasn't not a cheap I guess it wasn't too bad, but I
37:35
think our room was. But it can run up. Yeah, it ain't
37:39
no motel six anyways. U uh. In like October, they really it's
37:46
it's very expensive to stay there. Anyway. So he was walking out of
37:52
Doctor Baker's Lounge and fell over the staircase railing and he fell four stories to
37:57
his death. Now in two thoy nineteen, we're gonna read, we're still
38:00
we're gonna look at this, we'll take pictures of people, we'll post it.
38:04
Just okay, Well, we don't know Stuart More's the cat probably tripped
38:08
him. We don't know, it could have happened. So in twenty nineteen,
38:12
the legend of Norman Baker was back in the spotlight when a caretaker unearned
38:15
dozens of old bottles with human specimens in them, as well as bottles marked
38:20
cure number five, which is what he called one of his cures. Now,
38:23
the bottles were taken by the Arkansas Archaeological Survey Team and we're tested to
38:29
confirm the contents. The bottles are now on display, and what was the
38:34
morgue of the hospital, and that's where we'll be looking at the bottles.
38:40
Yeah, so it just like really opened everybody back up in there and you
38:44
know, all over the news again because these specimens were in there and everything,
38:49
so they probably weren't planted by not at all. No, the Archaeological
38:57
Society came in and it was kind of a big fine because it really confirmed
39:00
everything. You know, this is stuff all back in the nineteen thirties.
39:04
It really confirmed all the stories of Norman Baker and what he did his ass
39:09
clownery, yes, his area that he was doing. A question though,
39:14
is was he just an opportunist or was he a man's murderer? And we
39:20
don't know. We don't know. Well, we can ask him when we
39:22
see as ghosts. We can if we can ask Molaris if he was in
39:25
the Friskies. You don't think he's show back up at his hotel. At
39:30
his hotel, I don't know. I can ghost travel after that, I
39:31
go back to wherever. I don't know. You don't believe in them,
39:34
so it doesn't matter, that's why, because nobody can answer these questions for
39:38
me. Anyways. All right, well, we hope you enjoyed this history
39:43
lesson. I liked researching these. Maybe I'll do some more like this,
39:47
you know, not every week, obviously, but you know some other crazy
39:52
things that happened in the South that have to do with murder, but also
39:57
history, so we can learn something about the Kellog in the Battle Creek,
40:01
and the Calliope and the cow Wars. You know, everybody, we came
40:06
out a little smarter this time and that's not something we can normally say.
40:10
We sending cologg Cereal. We got Masha and the Bear in there, we
40:15
got the myrtles plantation in there up in Saint Francis, Phil What else are
40:20
we get in there? So I don't know. We're not gonna listen everything
40:22
we just talked about anyways. Why I was just talking about the learnings that
40:27
we had. We're not gonna have a y'all need Jesus tonight, So we'll
40:30
catch that next week. But we appreciate everything. So Facebook, Instagram,
40:36
we'll be posting about the Crescent Hotel, Patreon, check us out and leave
40:40
us a review. And I guess anything else do no? All right,
40:45
I guess we will see you next time unless we we die. We die
40:49
from the ghost. Let's morse the cat trips us so I can get some
40:52
insurance money, or I could get some insurance money, can get me.
40:58
I pray to no ghosts. Stuart, you're gonna get us killed at this
41:01
place. Oh my god, he's not gonna be able to be able to
41:04
stay anyways. All right, we will see you next time. Bye,
41:07
everyone, say by stud by stud, Don't you know it's bye to be
41:15
supersticious by nothing else is working, and it's really hurting and sick it working. I can