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Jude Gaillot with Mary Howze
Jude Gaillot with Crescent Hotel archivist Mary Howze, showing an original draft of a newspaper article by Chicago Tribune columnist Marge Lyons, who lived in Eureka Springs in the 1950s.

I dig history

Interviews

History these days is mostly on a screen, so I appreciate those times I get to dig through real stuff.

My latest expedition was to the archives of the 1886 Crescent Hotel. Yes, the hotel has archives: photographs, souvenirs, newspaper clippings, restaurant menus, and more from across its 138 years.

Crescent activities director and archivist Mary Howze was gracious enough to show me the collection.

The Crescent started life as a luxury resort for the nation’s fur-coat set. Later it became the first accredited junior college for women, then Norman Baker’s sham cancer hospital. Willie Nelson played private concerts in its ballroom for – let’s just call them his friends, since they were. The stories it holds in its walls have filled books.

In the archives, I stumbled across Baker’s parole report, which had some intriguing details. For example, he was the youngest of ten children. I wonder how such random circumstances might have shaped the path that led him to the Crescent Hotel – and Leavenworth Prison.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know where the hotel’s portal to another dimension is, just ask.

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