Crescent Hotel: Haunted by history and haints — Ozarks Alive (2024)

EUREKA SPRINGS - In a way, the Crescent Hotel is living ghost made of stone.

That description of the stately Eureka Springs landmark might seem problematic – Ghosts are dead, aren’t they? – but as guests walk its halls, they see wisps of a story that began in 1886.

Perched atop a hill and named for a spring down below, the Crescent evolved from hotel for high-class clientele to girls’ school and junior college to hospital and back to its original purpose.

Hotel staff, however, say that guests aren’t the only visitors who walk its halls – leading to contemporary interest in the place said to be “America’s Most Haunted Hotel.”

Some are known as Michael, Theodora, Breckie, Dr. John Freemont Ellis and even Morris, the latter who was once the hotel’s cat. Their presences are said to be regularly felt by visitors from paranormal investigators to the layman curious.

Little factual information is known for sure about the Crescent’s ghosts, but that doesn’t keep thousands of people from visiting the hotel each year to stay and try to see who they might meet.

Opening the Crescent Hotel

Eureka Springs was officially founded just seven years before the Crescent opened its doors.

Lore about the healing properties of local springs – today, more than 60 have been identified – began in the mid-1800s with Alvah Jackson, a pioneer physician, who successfully treated his son’s eye trouble with water from Basin Spring.

After using it in the Civil War to treat soldiers on both sides of the conflict, Jackson suggested that another man use it to help a leg ailment. That effort was also apparently successful, and word began to spread.

“Physical afflictions which today may be cured by the simplest of modern medication or treatment once meant a lifetime of suffering,” notes “Eureka Springs: A Pictorial History,” a book published by the local library district. “Persons who had given up hope came to the spring as a last resort, sometimes on the advice of their doctors who likewise lodged no more faith in limited measures available to them in the treatment of human ailments.”

Momentum began to build, and Eureka Springs was officially formed in 1879. A significant factor in its propulsion was the Eureka Improvement Company, which was founded by former Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton with the aim of enhancing the city for tourism.

“Eureka Springs owes much of its prosperity and growth to his keen foresight and magnificent management of the Improvement Company, and had it not been for his enterprise she would today have been without a railroad,” notes a person simply identified as “traveler” in the Des Moines Register after visiting Eureka Springs in 1887.

The Crescent was part of the group’s work, a fact which is preserved in the lobby today on a plaque embedded in the brick fireplace.

Perched over the growing town, the hotel cost $294,000 to build. In 2023, that figure would equal more than $10 million.

It was designed by architect Isaac S. Taylor of St. Louis, who grew to greater fame through his leadership with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition – otherwise known as the St. Louis World’s Fair – in 1904.

According to the hotel’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places, Taylor designed the hotel in a blended French Renaissance and Richardsonian Romanesque styles; limestone used for its construction was quarried in nearby Beaver, Arkansas, and was cut in such a way that no mortar was required.

The hotel was officially added to the historical register in 2016 — 130 years after it opened.

That day was May 20, 1886.

As the Daily Arkansas Gazette described it, “a grander occasion than the holiday festivities with the formal opening of the Crescent Hotel in this city has not been witnessed in Arkansas.”

It was such an occasion that visitors from at least six states made the trek for the celebration.

“The excursion train was met by bands of music, uniformed orders and carriages, and the guests escorted to the new hotel, which is situated on top of a mountain 2,000 feet above sea level,” noted a report in the Springfield Leader, which also listed the names of more than 50 Springfiedians who made the train trek to Eureka Springs.

“An excellent breakfast awaited the visitors, and a Delmonico dinner was partaken of by at least 600 gratified epicureans. At night the large and richly furnished hotel was illuminated from basem*nt to garret and the dining room was crowded by an elegantly dressed company of ladies and gentlemen who danced the hours away to excellent music. The sham battle was witnessed by a large number and at a late hour the tired guests sought the comfort of airy rooms and downy beds.”

Newspapers continued to feature regular notes and reports from the Crescent over the following years, but times were changing around the turn of the 20th century.

“By this time, people generally had begun to rely heavily on the efficacy of medicine and surgery for the healing of physical ailments,” notes the Eureka Springs pictorial history book. “The reliance and faith in natural cures diminished rapidly, and individuals no longer visited the health spas like Eureka Springs in such number as they had done only a few years before.”

In 1902, the Crescent was leased to the Frisco Railway for five years, a deal which would bring renovations to the hotel. A Frisco newspaper advertisem*nt from that same year specifically mentions the Crescent, proclaiming that since its remodel, it was “maintained as a strictly first-class hotel, and (was) open the year ‘round.”

That year-round business, however, wasn’t enough and led to another venture: Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women, which opened its doors in 1908 to help generate additional revenue for the hotel in the off-season. The college was proclaimed by the Fort Smith Times in August 1908 to be “one of the finest female seminaries in the country.”

“It will occupy the finest building with the most beautiful surroundings of any school in the southwest,” printed the Times in August 1908 in an article sharing that a carload of pianos had been purchased for the college. (The institution also prompted local conversation over whether or not licenses for local saloons should be issued.)

Crescent College – which also accepted young boys, at least for a time – operated over a traditional school year calendar, leaving the summers open to still operate as a hotel. The school continued until 1924, when it closed due to lack of funding, says the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Six years later, it reopened as Crescent Junior College and operated until 1934.

It’s important to note that while Eureka Springs’ ability to attract visitors for health concerns had changed by this time from its early days, it was not gone.

A 1926 pastel booklet, published by the Ozark Playgrounds Association as a tourism tool for communities in the region, describes Eureka Springs as “the city of healing waters” and “the oldest and largest exclusive health and pleasure resort in the United States.”

“The water is considered a specific in particular for diseases of the kidneys,” it continues, a smiling bathing beauty on the cover. “Tests have revealed it is Radio-Active and that the Beta rays considered the most effective as a curative agent in Bright’s Disease, predominate.”

This led into its life about 10 years later as the Baker Cancer Clinic, a destination for patients following Norman Baker, a broadcaster, writer, publisher, inventor, hypnotist, actor, and trickster.

Baker Cancer Clinic

The end of the 1930s brought the Crescent’s most short-lived – and controversial – era: Its transformation into the Baker Cancer Clinic.

Instead of luxurious rest and relaxation, the clinic drew thousands of patients from across the country who sought treatment for cancer and other ailments. It was at the hands of Baker, a charlatan with no medical experience, yet a significant following he developed over years of radio broadcasts and publications.

“With a flock of disciples to help him, the word of Baker was spread to America from headquarters at Muscatine, Iowa. There, Baker operated stores, had hospitals, made calliopes, printed a newspaper and magazine, and ran one of the nation’s most powerful radio stations,” noted an article in the Quad-City Times in 1955. “Each operation was integrated into the other, but all had as their focal point the Baker ‘cancer cure.’ All publicity, all radio broadcasts, were beamed in benefit of Norman Baker’s miracle hospitals … where cancer (and about everything else) could be cured.”

The article was focused through the lens of Iowa – where Baker was from and where his work began – but highlighted themes that carried through to his transition to Arkansas.

He organized a traveling act featuring a mind-reader named Madame Pearl Tangley; a photo shows him having hypnotized a group of participants. Baker patented the “Air Calliaphone, a portable organ run by air pressure that could be heard for a quarter of a mile,” notes the Encycolpedia of Arkansas. “In addition, he ran a correspondence art school and a mail-order business.”

Ultimately, his radio station – KNTN, or “Know The Naked Truth” – gave him a mouthpiece to reach masses about his unfounded beliefs.

He was politically minded, and had a private audience with President Herbert Hoover after supporting his campaign. That meeting led Hoover to help in the launch of the “Midwest Free Press,” a tabloid Baker published, in 1930.

While supported by some, his popularity was not a given. Baker did not claim to be a doctor, but ultimately started numerous hospitals, and attracted the ire of the American Medical Association for his health proclamations. That attention led to the loss of his radio station by the Federal Radio Commission in 1931, but he wasn’t deterred. At that point, he reestablished his station in Mexico.

But then he came to Eureka Springs — the “largest and most exclusive health and pleasure resort in the United States,” as that pastel promotional book put it just the decade before. While that healthful impression may have helped with branding for the hospital clinic, it seems the change was really at the hands of local Eureka Springs leaders.

“Norman Baker, former Davenporter and federal defendant because of his operation of a cancer hospital at Muscatine, wants to transfer the hospital to Eureka Springs, Ark., according to inquiries from that place to the federal court, Davenport, asking for his court status,” noted The Democrat and Leader in 1937. “It is stated that the chamber of commerce of Eureka Springs is attempting to bring about the move.”

Regardless of the ethics of Baker’s work – and what local leaders thought about him – dollar signs were something they likely envisioned by having him come to town. It would be a draw of its own, but that wasn’t all. Reports talk about an advertising campaign that would bring people back to the area.

“Agreement has been effected with city officials of Eureka Springs whereby a national advertising campaign costing $1,000,000 over a two year period will be commenced for the purpose of acquainting the public with the beauty, climate and famous spring waters of Eureka Springs,” noted the Springfield Daily News in August 1937 in an article about Baker’s move.

Articles of incorporation for a sanatorium, a pharmacy and a broadcasting station in Eureka Springs were filed in July 1937. The next month, the Springfield paper announced that Baker was intending to spend $50,000 to remodel the Crescent, a plan which included “massive four-story stone porches will be constructed, along with modern conveniences and gymnasiums for patients and guests.”

As part of that work, Baker also remodeled the hotel in largely lavender hues, which matched his car and suits.

But before then, Baker went to jail. He served a one-day sentence in Iowa for practicing medicine without a license and paid about $1,000 in fines.

As he left the jail, Baker addressed a crowd of “several hundred persons” from its steps. “He said he had served his sentence ‘for a cause which I hope some day will be appreciated,’” noted the Rock Island Argus in August 1937 — and led to the suggestion a month later that he might run for the U.S. Senate. (He was indeed a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat and for governor of Iowa, says the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, although he didn’t win either race.)

In November, a “large celebration” of “many thousands” was held at the Crescent to mark its new chapter.

“Everything is free and a wonderful program has been arranged, which includes a well known orchestra so that the crowd can enjoy dancing in the large, famous ball room of the Crescent Hotel,” says the Madison County Record. “It is stated that over three thousand special invitations have been mailed out together with free announcements to the public, and the Chamber of Commerce expects the event to be one fo the biggest that has happened in the Ozarks for half a century.”

Patients at Baker Cancer Clinic

It may have been one of the biggest events in half a century, but another big event was to come in about half a year. In May 1938, just seven months after that celebration, Claude Fuller, a U.S. Representative from Arkansas, urged for an investigation into Baker’s proported health practices.

“If he (Baker) has a fake remedy and is perpetuating a fraud upon the suffering American public, I would like for it to be known, and the American people are entitled to this knowledge,” Fuller said through the Journal-Advance newspaper out of nearby Benton County. “If he has a cure and is performing great work, the public should be so informed.”

All the while, patients were arriving in Eureka Springs, greeted at the Crescent by a sign that reminded them of why they were there: “We Cure Cancer,” it said.Other materials went through the mail reminding that the Crescent was “Where Sick Folks Get Well.”

It’s unclear how many patients were treated at the Crescent while it was used as a hospital. Some died; that figure is also uncertain.

Since Baker assured patients that they would be cured, death would be bad for business.

As part of treatment, the clinic used concoctions — for example, Formula 5. It was a mixture of alcohol, glycerol, carbolic acid, ground watermelon seed, corn silk and clover leaves.

“It is administered by injection at the site of the cancer — up to seven times a day,” says an article in Smithsonian Magazine about Baker and the Crescent. “Baker stole the recipe from another con man. It does nothing.”

End of the Baker Cancer Clinic

It seems Baker’s relationship with local leaders deteriorated quickly after his arrival in Eureka Springs. In early 1939, the city threatened to turn off water to the hospital unless Baker began paying for it.

In September, he was arrested for mail fraud, brought on by sending materials about his proclaimed cancer cure. The reason he was caught?

Mail fraud. There were those brochures, and the fact that he was accused of trying to make money off of cancer patients. It probably didn’t hurt that Eureka Springs postmaster was Harvey Fuller — Representative Fuller’s brother.

About three years after the hospital opened, Baker was sentenced to prison for four years in prison, and ordered to pay a $4,000 fine.

He served his term at Leavenworth, from where he was released in 1944. After a failed attempt to revive his cancer-curing efforts – and a stab at convincing the city of Eureka Springs to purchase the Crescent for a tuberculosis sanatorium – he allegedly retired to Florida where he lived out the rest of his life on a yacht. He died in 1958.

The Crescent Hotel’s next chapter

Sixty years after it opened, the Crescent began another new chapter in 1946, when it was sold yet again: This time, to four men – Herbert A. Byfield, John R. Constantine, Dwight O. Nichols, and Herbert E. Shutter – who worked to again bring interest to the Crescent as a hotel.

“One of the key strategies employed by the new owners was to establish travel vacation packages in collaboration with the Frisco Railroad,” notes the Crescent’s website. “This partnership brought forth a wave of tourists to the Eureka Springs area, eager to experience the charm and allure of the Crescent Hotel. These vacation packages provided travelers with an all-inclusive experience, combining the hotel’s luxurious accommodations with scenic train journeys, creating an unforgettable getaway for visitors.”

That effort ultimately led the way for the Crescent’s continuous use as a hotel – despite a devastating fire in 1967 which destroyed approximately 75% of the facility. To put this timeline in perspective, around the time of the fire was when Christ of the Ozarks began to tower over Eureka Springs atop nearby Magnetic Mountain.

It moved through several other owners and investment opportunities until, after a temporary closure, it was purchased by Marty and Elise Roenigk in 1997.

Marty Roenigk has since passed away, but Elise Roenigk still owns the hotel – as well as the downtown Eureka Springs Basin Park Hotel.

It was also in the latter half of the 20th century when visitors began being noticed beyond those who checked in at the desk.

Becoming America’s most haunted hotel

Dan Bennett meets me in the Crescent’s lobby, an ornate space that still smacks of vintage opulence. A guide for the Crescent’s ghost tours, Dan is dressed in a white doctor’s coat with a patch for Baker’s Cancer Clinic attached to the front.

He’s been in Eureka Springs for about 30 years, and has a background in community theater and radio, among other things. It was the time on air that was when he first heard about the Crescent’s hauntings. When did it all start? I ask.

He’s not quite sure, but has been aware of it for as long as he’s been in Eureka Springs, and that’s more than 30 years.

“For many years, they didn’t talk about it (the hauntings) publicly. Only the Roenigks really started the ghost tours when they came along,” he says. “Back in the day, I used to be a radio reporter and a freelancer. And so I knew the guy who was running the hotel back then. I came up here one day with my tape recorder and I thought, ‘Halloween is coming up, and it’d be a fun little story on the radio. A little ghost story.’

“So … I go into his office and we talk about the history of the hotel, and I say, ‘Tell me about some of the ghosts.’ And he says, ‘Nope. Turn it off. I’m not talking about the ghosts.’

“He thought it would run off business. And maybe it would back then, but you couldn’t tell it today.”

Dan is one of several folks who know that firsthand. Hundreds of people — sometimes in one night — go on ghost tours through the hotel. The Crescent’s website offers them in a number of options — kid, regular, and expert and expanded versions, the latter which features more history.

While on the tour, guests learn about the ghosts often reported in the hotel.

There’s Michael, said to be an Irish stonemason who fell to his death when building the hotel. Dr. John Freemont Ellis, the hotel’s in-house doctor in the early 1900s, has also been spotted.

Theodora, a young woman, may have been at the Crescent during its clinic days. There is another presence that’s more abstract; another young woman who jumped or perhaps was pushed off of a balcony. She’s referred to as the girl in the mist.

Breckie is a 4-year-old boy who died in the hotel due to complications from appendicitis. As the Crescent’s website puts it, “He has been seen throughout the hotel often bouncing a ball.”

We walk the hotel’s carpeted halls and stop at black doors with gold numbers, which Dan points out as some of the more “active” locations in the hotel.

One place is Room 419, where Theodora has been reported fumbling for her keys; another is the place in the hallway where Breckie has been seen bouncing that ball. Although Michael isn’t seen in the same way as others, his presence is felt — often in the form of flirtation with young women. He might pull a shower curtain back, or touch their shoulder.

It was in that room that Dan had his own experience with the Crescent’s ghostly presence, too.

“I've not seen an apparition, but I did have an experience in Michael's room,” Dan tells me.

It was during Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend, he says, about three years ago. He was stationed in Michael’s room as visitors stopped by to see the room. About 1 a.m., a woman came through on her 18th birthday along with a few family members.

“They want something to happen. So they asked the birthday girl if she wouldn't mind reclining on the bed to be, in their words, bait for Michael. So they're having fun with it,” Dan recalls. “They get their phones out and they're playing YouTube videos of Irish music. Some folks bring Irish whiskey and put a shot out for him.”

That mood quickly shifted when the girl on the bed pointed at a chest of drawers on the opposite wall.

“I'm not kidding — the upper-right-hand drawer was slowly opening all by itself,” says Dan.”This is one of the things people talk about. They talk about these drawers and doors opening by themselves. We went “agh!” It kind of freaked us out.

“We kind of regained our minds, and so we closed it. We were banging on the dresser; we were trying to make it happen. It just wasn’t happening again, and I’ve not seen it happen again.”

With a small ghost meter in his hand — which moves a needle when it detects energy fields — we continue our trek through the hotel. There’s a pause to pet the hotel cat, a friendly, black-and-white fellow named Jasper.

He’s not the only feline at home within the Crescent. Another was Morris, a marmalade tabby who was known as the hotel’s unofficial general manager.

He was so popular that when the brightly-hued greeter died in 1994, about 50 people attended his funeral, notes “The Crescent Hotel … with Ghost Stories.” Today, a portrait of Morris hangs in the lobby.

It’s a fitting combination, since Morris is also said to be the hotel’s youngest ghost — and the one they have the most knowledge about. Because while there are bits and pieces of information about some — Breckie was a verified person, as was Dr. Ellis — few historical facts are available about the others people share that they’ve seen.

“It’s one of those oral traditions, stories,” Dan says, giving the girl in the mist story as an example. “But it’s persisted for so long; the story has been told here for a long, long time.”

The last stop of the day is the morgue. It was once used as the kitchen, but later became the morgue and its walk-in cooler a place to store the bodies of deceased patients. Most folks who were near death were sent home to die, Bennett tells me, but ones who didn’t make it there came to the morgue after being sequestered to what became known as the asylum.

But before we arrive there, we pass a patch of grass where history reminds it’s never too far behind.

Just four years ago, hundreds of bottles were discovered buried in the dirt. It’s believed that they date to the days of the hospital.

“We called the University of Arkansas and they brought the archaeological survey team,” Dan tells me. “We did a dig in April 2019, and they found more than 400 artifacts — many bottles and jars, medicine bottles, couple of specimen jars.”

Behind the clangey door and appropriately dark space is that morgue. Dan pulls out several of those bottles from a locked cabinet.

“This cabinet is where we keep a few of the more curious jars,” he says. “There’s something in there, but they said it was just too decrepit to try to get any kind of analysis of it. Two of the specimen jars they took to Little Rock to the University of Arkansas Medical School.”

One jar, he mentions, was found to have a bed sore inside it.

“But he (Baker) didn’t do surgery, so how was he getting these things out? Well, if you’re desperate, you’ll believe anything.”

What does this mean today?

Even without the ghost detector in Dan’s hand, it’s clear that interest — and belief — is high, and continues to be part of an evolving Ozarks culture.

Interest in ghost and folk stories is not new. Vance Randolph, famed folklorist of the Ozarks, has a chapter dedicated to the topic in his book, “Ozark Magic and Folklore.”

“Nearly all of the old-time hillfolk are firm believers in ghosts and wandering spirits, although few adult males will admit this belief to outsiders nowadays,” he wrote in 1947. “But in the childhood of men and women still living, the telling of ghost stories was much more common than it is today. The pioneers used to invite people to their cabins for the express purpose of swapping supernatural tales. It was a recognized form of social entertainment, especially favored by people who did not hold with dancing or card playing.”

In the case of the Crescent, hundreds of people in a single night may go through the hotel to learn more about the spirits that are said to call it home. (On weekends from Spring until Christmas, Dan tells me, they’ll do “eight or nine tours a night.”) Others specifically request to stay in the rooms that are believed to have the most ghostly activity, like the ones tied to Theodora and Michael.

“I mean, this time of year, especially,” Dan says of the spooky autumn season. “I had some folks tell me the other night that they booked it (Michael’s room) nine months ago. People are into it.”

Paranormal investigators visit the Crescent. There is the aforementioned Eureka Springs Paranormal Weekend. In the hotel lobby, a three-ring binder is filled with similar stories and images that the hotel says were sent from those who had those experiences firsthand.

A documentary is in the works; an artist is getting ready to release a new graphic novel with the Crescent at its center. A Facebook group specifically dedicated to the Crescent’s ghosts has nearly 20,000 members: Posts include personal experiences and photos and thoughts from others.

The latter represents a new method of preserving local stories.

“The internet is a huge source of new folklore, and what happens there shows the same processes that oral folkore does, though the groups are more widespread, and everything happens faster,” says Dr. Adam Davis, professor of English and Linguistics at Truman State University and secretary and webmaster for the Missouri Folklore Society.

Another example is through Still on the Hill, a folk duo comprised of Kelly and Donna Mulhollan. In 2008, they released Ozark, an album focused on locally inspired songs — one of which was titled “Ghost of the Crescent Hotel.”

It was after one of those ghost tours when Donna Mulhollan was inspired to write the song, which focuses on a couple’s experience at the Crescent while being observed by one of the hotel’s ghosts. Her song focuses on a vague version of the woman in white who is seen falling or jumping from the balcony — a loose tie to the girl in the mist.

“It was the first CD of our songs about the Ozarks and sort of launched us in that direction,” she says. “We both feel like the world is getting so alike — big-box stores, everyone watching the same movies, listening to the same music, all the regional differences are disappearing.

“We feel that folks are craving their roots and a sense of place.Because we have been writing songs about people and places in the Ozarks, folks keep sharing cool stories with us that need to be preserved and songwriting is the way we do that.It fills our souls.”

And the sharing of those stories — through song, Facebook, stories, and tours — are part of that preservation, even if we don’t know all of the definite historical details.

As one commenter in the Crescent’s ghost group put it in response to a photo of a perceived ghost: “I love this hotel, and I love seeing images and stories like this pop up on my timeline!”

Want to learn more?

Click here to visit the Crescent Hotel’s website.

Resources

“$50,000 remodeling job at Eureka Springs hotel,” Springfield Daily News, Aug. 3, 1937
”Baker Hospital and Eureka Springs at outs,” Miner and Mechanic, July 28, 1939
“Baker in Arkansas,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 28, 1937
”Baker would sell hospital to state,” Helena World, April 7, 1940
“Buys carload pianos,” Fort Smith Times, Aug. 11, 1908
“The Charlatan of the Ozarks Still Looms Over the Haunted Crescent Hotel,” Jeff MacGregor, Smithsonian Magazine, January 2020
“Claude Albert Fuller (1876–1968),” John Fuller Cross, Encyclopedia of Arkansas
”Crescent College and Conservatory,” Jenny Vego, Encyclopedia of Arkansas
“The Crescent Hotel,” Springfield Leader, May 21, 1886
Crescent Hotel, National Register of Historic Places application, Stacy Hurst, 2015
”The Crescent Hotel…with Ghost Stories,” Susan Schaefer, 2017
“Eureka Springs,” Des Moines Register, April 16, 1887
“Eureka Springs: A Pictorial History,”
“Fuller asks investigation of Eureka Springs Hospital,” The Journal-Advance, May 26, 1938
”Harvey Fuller dies at Eureka Springs,” The Madison County Record, Aug. 18, 1949
“Missouri Manuscript,” James K. Hutsell, The Belle Banner, Sept. 7, 1939
No headline, Arkansas Democrat, March 7, 1901
No headline, Arkansas Democrat, April 8, 1909
”Norman Baker (1882–1958),” Michael B. Dougan, Encyclopedia of Arkansas
“Norman Baker: he built powerful empire at Muscatine around KTNT and ‘cure’ for cancer,” Quad-City Times, Oct. 13, 1955
“Norman Baker has day in jail,” Rock Island Argus, Aug. 16, 1937
“Norman Baker wants to move from Muscatine,” The Democrat and Leader, July 19, 1937
”The Ozarks: Land of a Million Smiles,” Ozark Playgrounds Association, 1926
”Ozark Magic and Folklore,” Vance Randolph, 1947
“Thousands expected to visit Eureka Srgs. Saturday eve,” Madison County Record, Nov. 4, 1937
“Shall saloons remain in Eureka,” The Star Progress, Jan. 1, 1909
“The Waste Basket,” Springfield Daily News, Aug. 6, 1937