Basin Park Hotel

Built in 1905 in downtown Eureka Springs, this historic hotel features a hidden speakeasy and underground levels. Every floor is a ground floor due to the hillside construction.

The Basin Park Hotel opened on July 1, 1905, in the heart of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, built on the site of the former Perry House hotel that had been constructed in 1881 and burned to the ground a few years later. The seven-story limestone structure was designed with a remarkable architectural feature that earned it a mention in Robert Ripley's 1930 Believe It or Not! cartoons: every floor has a ground-level entrance, as the hotel is built directly into the mountainside. Iron catwalks on every floor lead to the limestone bluffs behind the building, providing fireproof escape routes — a critical design choice given the Perry House's fiery demise. The hotel featured hot running water, electricity, and private bathrooms, remarkable amenities for early twentieth-century Arkansas.

During Prohibition and into the 1940s and 1950s, the Basin Park became a gathering place for wealthy Chicago families — a euphemism, as hotel history acknowledges, for organized crime figures. The establishment allegedly operated an on-site madam and facilitated illegal liquor and gambling. The hotel's most famous Prohibition-era guest was Mafalda Capone Mariote, Al Capone's only surviving sibling, who reportedly spent an entire month enjoying the illicit entertainment. An underground cave beneath the hotel was used to store bootleg whiskey during the dry years. A 1955 sheriff's raid finally shut down the operations, confiscating liquor and gambling equipment during the annual Barefoot Ball — a tradition that began in 1948 when a California couple won a radio contest requiring them to remain barefoot throughout their stay. The 1972 Barefoot Ball became notorious when police deployed tear gas to disperse unruly festivities in the Barefoot Ballroom.

The Basin Park, sister property to the 1886 Crescent Hotel, is one of the most actively investigated haunted hotels in Arkansas. The most documented spirit is a cowboy ghost who appears in Room 307, materializing to unsuspecting guests during the night. A translucent young woman with steel blue eyes and cotton candy blonde hair has been reported by multiple witnesses on the guest floors. A little girl in a yellow dress with pigtails appears in various locations throughout the hotel. On the upper floors, particularly in wings that abut the ramps to the limestone bluffs, reoccurring orbs have been photographed and observed with the naked eye.

In the Barefoot Ballroom, human-shaped shadows have been seen moving through the empty space. In the ballroom's foyer, large faces have appeared on the inside of stained-glass windows — an effect that defies the optics of how stained glass normally reflects light. During a private paranormal investigation in January 2018, a tour guide participating in an EVP session in the hotel experienced sudden throat pressure that escalated until he could not breathe. Upon examination, red marks encircled his neck as though two hands had tried to choke him. The incident was documented by the paranormal expert leading the session.

Numerous paranormal investigation teams have conducted research at the Basin Park over the years, recording electromagnetic spikes in rooms on the second and third floors, capturing EVP recordings, and documenting temperature fluctuations throughout the building. The hotel's underground prohibition-era whiskey cave produces its own phenomena — voices and footsteps have been heard in the subterranean space when no one else is present, as though the long-gone party from the Capone era never truly ended. The hotel operates a Ghost Adventour combining ghost tours with paranormal investigation equipment, taking guests from the rooftop down to the underground cave, led by two mediums who guide participants through the hotel's most active areas on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings.