Basin Park Hotel Ghosts: Haunted Eureka Springs, Arkansas Hotel History & True Ghost Stories
The Basin Park Hotel: Inside the Most Haunted Hotel in the Ozark
There's a hotel in the Arkansas Ozarks where you can walk in the front door on the first floor, or walk in a completely different front door on the sixth floor, and never once feel like you've climbed a hill. It's built out of limestone and dolomite, sits directly on top of the ashes of the hotel that burned down before it, and Ripley's Believe It or Not once called it out for having eight ground floors.
It's called the Basin Park Hotel, and on this week's episode of You Two Scare Me, we dug into its history, its ghosts, and why we think it might give the famous Crescent Hotel up the road a real run for its money.
Here's everything we covered, plus a few things we couldn't fit into the episode.
A Town Built on a Rumor About Water
To understand the Basin Park Hotel, you have to understand Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a town that exists almost entirely because of a 19th century rumor.
Long before settlers arrived, the Osage people and other Native American groups moved through the area, and local legend holds that the springs were considered sacred, neutral ground where rival tribes could gather without conflict. After the Osage were forced to cede the land in 1825, the area sat mostly untouched until a doctor named Alvah Jackson claimed the spring water cured his son's eye ailment in 1856. Convinced of its healing power, Jackson set up a hospital in a literal cave during the Civil War, then went on to sell "Dr. Jackson's Eye Water" to great success.
In 1879, word spread that the water had also cured a judge's chronic skin condition, and that was all it took. Within months, people suffering from every imaginable ailment were making the trek into this Ozark valley to bathe in and drink from the springs. On July 4, 1879, settlers formally founded the town of Eureka Springs at the largest spring in the area. By 1881, it was the fourth largest city in Arkansas.
Investors poured in, the railroad arrived, and for about a decade, Eureka Springs was one of the premier resort destinations in the country, all sparked by one man and one bottle of eye drops.
Built on the Ashes of Another Hotel
Boomtowns built out of cheap, fast wood-frame construction have one big problem: fire. Eureka Springs burned repeatedly in the late 1800s, and one fire in particular matters to our story. In 1890, a grand four-story hotel called the Perry House, built almost directly on top of Basin Spring, burned to the ground. The lot sat empty for fifteen years.
Then, in 1905, a new hotel went up in its place. This one wasn't taking any chances. It was built almost entirely out of limestone and dolomite, and was marketed as "fireproof." It was named the Basin Park Hotel, and it's still standing today.
Its most famous feature isn't just clever. It may have saved lives. Because the hotel is built directly into a steep mountainside, every one of its eight floors has its own separate ground-level entrance, originally designed as a built-in fire escape. Guests on any floor could walk straight outside via iron catwalks if disaster struck.
Gangsters, Slot Machines, and the Barefoot Ball
By the 1940s, the Basin Park Hotel had a new owner with big, not entirely legal, ideas. Joe Parkhill installed a bar and slot machines on the sixth floor and kept the liquor flowing during an era when Arkansas law didn't allow it. Word reportedly reached Chicago, and local lore says members of the city's organized crime scene made regular trips down to gamble and vacation at the hotel, sometimes as Parkhill's personal guests. There's even a rumor that Al Capone's sister once stayed there for over a month.
The hotel's unique architecture wasn't just quirky. It doubled as a private escape route in case of a police raid.
This same era gave the hotel one of its most beloved traditions: the Barefoot Ball. In 1948, a national radio show awarded a young couple a stay at the hotel on the condition that they travel completely barefoot. Parkhill loved the spectacle so much he turned it into an annual formal ball, minus the shoes, that's still held today. One notable exception is the legendary 1972 ball, which reportedly got so out of hand that police broke it up with tear gas.
The party ended in 1955 when a newly elected sheriff raided the hotel, some say mid-Barefoot Ball, and shut the operation down for good.
The Ghosts of the Basin Park Hotel
So why is this hotel supposedly so haunted? Locals point to two theories: the lingering energy from the 1890 fire that destroyed the Perry House, or the idea that the ground itself, the sacred spring site, has always carried some kind of natural energy, similar to what people describe feeling in Sedona.
Whatever the reason, the reported residents are consistent and specific:
The woman in the hallway — a translucent young woman with pale blonde hair and steel-blue eyes, often seen walking through the lobby and corridors looking distressed, as though searching for someone who isn't there anymore.
The girl in the yellow dress — a child of five to eight years old with pigtails, sometimes seen alongside the blonde woman. One guest reported waking up to see her walk through a wall, approach the foot of the bed, and lift the covers as if checking who was sleeping there.
The cowboy of Room 310 — believed by many to be cattle baron John Chisum, who came to Eureka Springs seeking a cure for a tumor. Guests staying in Room 310 have reported him standing at the foot of the bed or asking if anyone's seen his horse.
The Barefoot Ballroom — one of the hotel's most active spaces, with reports of shadow figures moving across the floor, phantom music, and faces appearing in the stained-glass windows. During one paranormal investigation, a tour guide reportedly came away from an EVP session with unexplained marks around his throat.
There's also a phantom dog heard trotting through empty halls, a mysterious "lion ghost," a man in an old-fashioned brown suit who vanishes in doorways, and recurring orbs in guest photographs, especially on the second and third floors, near the limestone bluffs.
Guest accounts add even more texture: a mirror that vanished minutes after making one visitor violently nauseous (staff insisted no mirror had ever hung there), EVP recordings and unexplained EMF readings captured over a Christmas stay, and a group of friends who woke to find they had no memory of leaving their room in the middle of the night.
Of course, plenty of guests stay at the Basin Park Hotel and experience nothing but charm, creaky floors, quirky window units, and history. For every vanishing mirror, there's a couple who spent three peaceful nights on the second floor and are already planning their next trip.
Visit It Yourself
The Basin Park Hotel now leans fully into its haunted reputation, running regular ghost tours led by staff who double as mediums, plus overnight paranormal investigation experiences complete with REM pods, laser grids, and thermal cameras.
We're actually headed there ourselves in just over a week, and we cannot wait to see if we run into the woman in the hallway, the girl in yellow, or the cowboy of Room 310.
Shout out to Appalachian Paranormal Group!
We won a contest that they hosted and will be investigating the West Virginia State Penitentiary with them in November! So excited! Check out their YouTube and socials to see what they’ve been up to! Thanks, Eric and Eric!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AppalachianParanormalGroup
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Appalachian-Paranormal-Group-LLC-61584224911448/
Listen to the Full Episode
Want all the details, plus this week's spine-chilling listener story in our "Somebody Told Me" segment? Listen to the full episode of You Two Scare Me wherever you get your podcasts.
Got your own ghost story? Send us your ghostly encounters, cryptid sightings, or unexplained experiences at youtwoscaremepodcast@gmail.com . We might feature it in a future episode!
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Stay curious…and beware what lurks beyond the light.
The Basin Park Hotel, seen from above, built directly into the hillside above Eureka Springs. Every floor has its own ground level entrance to the street outside.
