Specimen bottles and mass graves. Both were discovered this year. One in Arkansas and the other in Oklahoma. Both prove the past doesn’t stay buried. Eventually it will be dug up.
It also proves that sometimes lore stems from fact. Let’s take a look at these two examples from 2019.
Dr. Baker’s Bottles
From 1937-1940, Norman Baker owned the building that is now the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. From 1938-1940, he operated it as the Baker Hospital and Health Resort and claimed to have found the cure for cancer.
Which he didn’t. He was a shyster. He’d started out in vaudeville and wound up convicted of mail fraud –due to trying to pass himself off as a medical professional when in fact he was not.
Anyway, as reported in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, “According to Eureka Springs lore, in the hospital morgue, Baker had rows of jars full of samples of tumors that had been removed from patients. A full-page advertisement in the hospital’s magazine included pictures of the jars.”
In February 2019, Susan Benson, the Crescent Hotel’s “landscape artist,” discovered a cache of bottles buried behind the hotel. She uncovered them while starting construction on an archery range.
Many of the bottles still contained fluid –which preliminary tests concluded was “mostly alcohol.” Some also appeared to contain tissue. Others were labeled “Cure #5.”
Before this find, however, the bottles and rumors that he displayed tumors he’d removed from patients was only that –rumors. This helped verify that.
If you want to see the bottles, they’re on display in the Crescent’s morgue, which you can see during one of the hotel’s ghost tours.
Boo-k It!
The Crescent Hotel and Spa
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
I had heard of the Tulsa riots. Awful stuff.
How terrible for all of Baker’s patients who got their hopes up only to learn, in the end, that it was a sham.
Two outstanding stories on historic lore that I knew nothing about until reading above. Now my curiosity is peaked and I need to dig for more information. Thank you again for sharing.
Oh YAY! I’m so glad to hear you found them interesting too!!!
This is what breaks my heart. Preying on people who are so vulnerable and desperate and suffering. I hope they found peace after their passings.