Ghost Encounter in Eureka Springs Surprises Cynical Cop, Writer

By Jill M. Rohrbach, Ark. Dept. of Parks and Tourism

First posted on 07-18-2008

EUREKA SPRINGS, AR – Patrick McCully hopes the ghosts he met a year ago on the balcony of the 1886 Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs are right, because that would mean the book he wrote and is currently shopping around to agents will be published.

On July 26, 2007, McCully of Texas sat on the balcony of the Crescent Hotel soaking up the scenery while doing a bit of work on some of his writing projects.

“I was staying at the Writers’ Colony [at Dairy Hollow] and one of the things I wanted to do was see Eureka Springs. I would write all morning and afternoon and sightsee at lunch and at night,” McCully explained. “People said, ‘That’s a haunted hotel. Go see it.’ I wanted to do my [Ernest] Hemingway thing and drink coffee and watch people.” So McCully went to the balcony with his personal digital assistant and wireless keyboard to watch and write.

“Someone came up to me and said, ‘Hey, are you a writer?’ I turned around to see who it was and it was an older couple,” McCully said in a recent phone interview. He described the man’s attire as long slacks and a polo shirt and the woman’s as a sundress. McCully said their clothes were not time specific in any obvious way.

McCully gave the couple a sideways glance thinking it an odd question even though he did have some notes laying around.

“Me being the young amateur, I said, ‘Yes.’” They asked his name and he told them.

“Oh, we know your stuff.”

“Really?” McCully responded, thinking that was impossible since he’s never had a book published, only some short stories in magazines and anthologies.

“Yeah. We’ve read your book. We have it on our bookshelf at home.”

At this point, McCully said he was thinking that thousands of books come out every year and this couple is simply mistaken in thinking they have read one authored by him.

“Then they proceed to describe the book, my book, back to me,” McCully said. “They say, ‘Oh yeah, four soldiers struggle to survive in France during the war.’”

A police officer currently living in Garland, Texas, McCully said his cynical cop thought-process kicked in and he began trying to piece together how they might be able to guess that – from his short-haired military appearance and maybe his notes on the table. But McCully said the couple was adamant that they recognized him from the photo on the jacket of his book.

“Considering that book hasn’t been published but has been submitted to agents it was just very, very odd,” McCully said. “I was working on four different pieces. I tried to look and see if they could have discerned anything from my notes and they couldn’t have.”

“So we argue back and forth,” McCully said. “They ask, ‘Hey, can we read what you’re writing right now?’”

McCully shuffled his papers and when he looked back to answer them, they were gone.

“I looked for them, grabbed my stuff and sort of ran around the hotel a little bit and never saw them,” McCully said, adding, “There were not a lot of people walking around.”

He said he thought someone might be playing a wicked joke, but he didn’t know anyone in town or how anyone back home could have pulled something like that off.

“I talked to some other people about it and it doesn’t fit the mystique of the Crescent,” McCully
added.

The Crescent does have a reputation in the Ozarks as a haunted hotel, but the alleged ghosts are usually from the hotel’s past. As a result, the hotel offers Ghost Tours for those interested in the idea of poltergeists that checked in but never left. The hotel has also been featured on a Sci-Fi Channel Ghost Hunters episode. For more information on the hotel, visit http://www.crescent- hotel.com.

Still. Real ghosts?

McCully said he isn’t a strong believer in ghosts and tends to wonder if it was just a weird coincidence. “That would be such a cool thing if it turns out true,” he added. “It was good motivation to finish writing [the book].”

McCully finished and polished his book about the soldiers in France while at the Writers’ Colony
at Dairy Hollow. In fact, the first three chapters and synopsis are what he turned in for the
Arkansas Pen Women’s 2007 Writers Conference contest that won him the trip to the Writers’ Colony. “As a writer, it was probably the best experience I’ve ever had,” he said. “My goal was about 10,000 words a day, which is beyond probably what I’ll ever attempt in my life again. I ended up getting four different stories completed.”

The Writers’ Colony offers two-week to three-month residencies for more than 50 experienced and emerging writers in all genres and songwriters each year. The gift of uninterrupted work time in a supportive environment, along with Eureka’s natural Ozark Mountain surroundings and a vibrant community of writers, musicians, artists and performers, has beckoned emerging and experienced writers since the Colony opened in June, 2000. For more information, visit http://www.writerscolony.org.