Episode 3
Sometimes clues to even the biggest mystery are hiding right in plain sight. Now America's most haunted hotel has its mysteries, like what happened to Delilah Carrington in 1934. She fell from the third story balcony and my kids and I saw it happen, or rather, we saw her ghost. Delilah had some secrets that she wanted to keep hidden. But the low budget ghost squad was here and The Secrets were about to come out.
Well, hi there. I'm Natalie.
And I'm Alison
And I’m Ethan.
And this is episode three of The Low Budget Ghost Squad. It tells the story of what happened when we went to the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, AR.
It's known for its ghosts like Michael in room 218, who's a flirt, and Theodora, who still looks for the key to her old room.
Really, I wouldn't think she needed the key because she's a ghost, Can’t ghosts, like walk through walls?.
You’d think so, but maybe she doesn't know how to do it yet. Anyway, I got dragged here. Well, you know, I really shouldn't say that. It didn't take much convincing, but my kids saw this place on YouTube.
And now here we are in the middle of our own mystery.
We've also got this app that lets spirits talk to us and no, I've not been drinking. It really is happening.
It's been sending us messages and names like Jack and Jason and the last name of Whiteford.
And you're about to find out more about what happened to Delilah Carrington back in 1934.
Well, that's when the Crescent Hotel was also the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women during the offseason. But it wouldn't be for much longer.
Henry befriended us and he's worked at the Crescent for decades and he approached us because he heard that we had seen a ghost the night before. And we've learned that ghost is believed to be of Delilah Carrington. So he snuck us into what was Delilah's old room on the third floor. Wasn't that hard. It’s not really used much anymore.
Yeah, he said. There had been too much tragedy tied to it.
And you know, when someone says something like that, I think they're just begging for you to ask.
So that's what I did. I asked.
Besides Deliliah’s death, he said there had been an accident here years after Delilah died.
A really deadly accident.
Henry said about 30 years ago, around 1990, the granddaughter of Jack Carrington, Delilah's brother, came here to find out what happened to her great aunt. She'd been intrigued by his story for years and notice his name is Jack. You know, like the ghost app said.
This girl's name was Lucy Carrington, and she hunted Henry down once she heard that his dad had been the one to find Delilah's body.
But Jason was pretty old by then, but he still told Lucy all about it.
And I want you to also notice that his name is Jason. Again, like the ghost app said.
Lucy also talked to Charlie Whiteford and he happened to be Delilah fiancé.
Now Charlie's grandfather Samuel helped found this hotel, and Charlie ended up marrying Delilah's roommate Alice Faye Warlick, relatively quickly after Delilah's death.
Of course. Now, Henry said the two of them were huge on the charity and social scene for the rest of their lives. According to Henry, people in town and you know they know, claim that Charlie made a fortune of his own in the illegal gambling business that was running wild in the downtown area of Eureka Springs.
Now, Alice Faye actually died here in the hotel. She had a heart attack in the middle of a hallway. Strangely, on the third floor. That's the same floor where she shared her room with Delilah all those years before her grandson William was walking with her and he said she just collapsed.
At least that's what she said.
Spoilers. I said this in part one. You can't do that yet.
OK, sorry. Alright, so let's get back to this. Henry said that Lucy told him Charlie didn’t seem all that emotional about Delilah at first when he was talking about her, but then she saw a small tear in his eye. He quickly wiped it away.
I don't think she ever met with Alice Faye, but she did send Lucy a note. Henry said he delivered it straight to her room at this hotel, but there was no idea what it said because he never got the chance to ask her.
So when we heard that, the big question we had, well, why not? What happened to Lucy?
He told us she was in this room. There was a little construction work going on and wait for it. She fell from the balcony.
You know when he told us she died in Delilah's room? Dead silence from us. Maybe that's not the best choice of words, but you know what I mean.
He said it had been an accident and that's what everybody thought.
Yeah, something about she shouldn't have been in that room and it was dangerous. The new railing on the balcony wasn't ready yet.
You guys are not selling it. She felt just like Delilah, and then, Henry says she was wearing old timey clothes like her, too.
OK, then there's this. She was telling someone on the phone that she found out what happened to Delilah is hidden in this hotel.
And why we didn't see it earlier, I'll never know.
Yeah, I'll never know either, Allison.
You know, right in the middle of talking to us, Henry starts going into his history tour mode, you know what he would tell the guests of the hotel here at the Crescent. Because it really has a fascinating history.
It opened in 1886 as a hotel, but then in 1908 the women's college opened up and then by 1937, this doctor and totally using, quote, fingers there, you just can't see me. His name was Doctor Norman Baker. He opened a hospital, claiming he could cure cancer. And well, you know, he couldn't. But it's interesting because Henry told us when it was a college, the girls would have this, like really, really don't know how to describe it. Like this sophisticated dumb waiter or pulley system or something on the side of the building, and they would haul their linens up and down for washing. Well, they didn't just haul linens up and down, they also used it to smuggle the boys in you know that didn’t go over well.
So I'm thinking. Did someone smuggle in a murderer?.
Well, Henry said construction workers found a secret passageway in there, too. That's closed up now. But we were wondering, is that how somebody got in this room and
Wouldn't you know it, and we had to leave right then and there? He said he had to be at his post in case people wanted to know the history of the place like we didn't.
And he told us we needed to sneak out because we weren't supposed to be in there in the first place.
Now in the hallway, guys, do you remember seeing all the stuff in the display case?
Yeah, they had some old pictures and souvenirs in there and it was funny.
We saw the those old collector plates like a grandparent may have bought on all those family vacations you go on.
These had a picture of the Crescent Hotel and the date.
One of them was from 1973 when it was reopened after a restoration.
And then there was that thing in there that everyone wanted to talk about.
We make it sound so mysterious, but it's actually called an Air Calliaphone and I really hope I'm saying that correctly. Apologies if not.
At the time, it was this new kind of musical instrument and the so-called cancer Doctor Who used to own this building, created it and made a fortune off of it.
He bought the place with the money that he made from selling that and of course promised that he could cure people's cancer.
But you know how that turned out?
And I love the old pictures too.
It showed hotel guests from maybe 100 years ago, and it had a vibe of that early 80s movie somewhere in time.
If you’re a certain age you remember that. And there was an old photo of the Crescent Bowling Club. I'm sure that was a good time.
There was one of the championship women's basketball team from 1931. The Crescent Comets were pretty good.
It looked like the college girls had done a few plays too, some Shakespeare and even a Nancy Drew one.
And it's funny when we saw that I had to look that one up because I didn't realize the first Nancy Drew book came out in 1930.
Remember the picture of the other hotel?
You have The same people who own the Crescent also own the other historical hotel in the town, the 1905 Basin Park Hotel, and for decades it was a favorite among gangsters.
You had lots of illegal booze, late night card games, prostitution, all of it going on in there. And some doors would be marked storage, but it was just a ruse to hide all the drinking and gambling. You know, maybe that's where Charlie Whitford set up shop.
It said that Al Capone’s sister lived there for a while.
Doubt anyone would have the guts to kick her out.
She could still be there, who knows. One of the pictures from the Basin Park Hotel is from what's called the Barefoot Ball, and I love the story. In 1948, a couple from California won a trip to the hotel on a radio game show. The stipulation – they had to be barefoot the whole time. And they did it. And so, in their honor, the city started what is called the Barefoot Ball and it's an annual party that they still do today. Nobody wears shoes. Ohh fun fact, in 1955 the sheriff busted in during the Barefoot Ball and confiscated all the illegal slot machines and smashed them up right on the street and burned them too. Sent a pretty big message to the gamblers there.
Do you remember what you said when you heard about that, Ethan? Yay, all history is not that boring.
So we did learn some valuable lesson on this trip.
No, I didn't.
And there was another picture dated 1934, and it had some young ladies sitting around, but in the background, Alison recognized somebody.
It was Delilah. And guys, guess what? The guy she was talking to looked like a young Henry.
And what happened next was just insane. Henry was standing there at the end of the hallway just staring at us?
I motioned for him to come over and I pointed out the photos to him and I think he looked stunned.
Yeah, he started stammering. I, I didn't know about this. And said. That's my dad. Henry backed away and said I have to go and we lost him after he went around the corner,
but we were about to have an encounter with someone else in that hallway.
Yeah, I don't think he liked us making it that much.
Ohh yeah that ghost hunting app. Well I forgot I had turned it off because it was so loud earlier.
And when I turned it back on, it went wild.
Coming up on the low budget ghost squad : Somebody at the Crescent is not what they seem to be and their big secret was about to be revealed. And wait, are you telling me there's a ghost cat here?
The Low Budget Ghost Squad is part of Spellbound Productions.
This was written, directed, edited, produced and whatever else by the leader of the low budget Good Squad yours truly.
And thanks of course to Alison and Ethan for their hard work and willingness to play along.
And maybe you saw some of awesome graphic art design by Lucinda Peterson.
And if you want to see some of the things you've heard about throughout this podcast, go to our Instagram and YouTube channel that are in the description and that's where we'll have some fun Pictures, videos and behind the scene stuff.
