The Horrific Actions of the Past?

by Delaney Reaves, Managing Editor

NorthWest Arkansas Community College recently hosted art professor Sean Fitzgibbon to give him an opportunity to speak about his latest book. “What Follows Is True: Crescent Hotel” is a graphic nonfiction about the Crescent Hotel and the stories that happened in it. Fitzgibbon also held a book signing after the event in the Integrated Arts Design Lab building.

Fitzgibbon said that he started working on this project in 2008 and his book was finally released in Jan. 2021. The book focuses on the Crescent Hotel, a hotel that was opened in 1886 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas by architect Isaac S. Taylor. He said he has had an interest in the story of the building since he was young. “My ten year old brain was going nuts, it kinda haunted me through the years”, Fitzgibbon said.

The hotel’s history has a long past of being once a cancer hospital, hotel and spa and a conservatory girls school before the Great Depression. His book focuses around the story of Norman Baker who was a machinist, magician, and radio broadcaster. After coming to Arkansas he discovered the abandoned hotel that shut down during the Great Depression era. He took the building over to later establish the Baker Cancer hospital in 1937. Baker was not a licensed doctor and never practiced medicine.

During the two years that the establishment was running, Baker falsely advertised that they had found a cancer cure. This led many to come to the hospital for the cure; many deaths occurred because of the unethical treatments and promises of the hospital. In 1939 Baker was caught for mail fraud and the hospital closed its doors. Baker eventually died from cancer at the age of 75.

Fitzgibbon recently had some of his art work displayed at the “Embody: A Collection of Works by NWACC Art Faculty”. The exhibit was a display of various works from the art faculty at NWACC.

Photo by Delaney Reaves