EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final installment in a continuing series of articles in October related to "spooky Spa" legends leading up to All Hallows' Eve.
The Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa has been talked about for years as a haunted place in Hot Springs, but it wasn't until about five years ago employees were allowed to talk about witnessed encounters with what may just be spirits of the dead.
While at first worried it would scare off guests, Arlington Director of Operations Carmen Jones said ever since employees were granted permission to speak of the rooms and areas where unexplainable things occurred, the supposed haunted rooms of the hotel are now "requested quite often."
Jones started working for the hotel in 1997, and said she has experienced strange happenings throughout the venue, as well as heard countless stories from hotel guests.
Jones said she has personally experienced unexplainable light flickering and dimming in two of the hotel's event rooms on a regular basis.
"The Magnolia Room downstairs ... occasionally we'll be setting up for a group and the lights will go real bright and then they flicker," she said. "I've had our maintenance department, and we've brought in electricians to look at it, and there's nothing wrong with the wiring, it's not the dimming switch; it's just unexplainable.
"There's also a chandelier in the Venetian Dining Room that's in the far back corner, and you can be standing there at the serving station and all of a sudden it will go extremely bright and it's the only chandelier in the room that will do it, and then it'll dim back out, and all of them are on the same wiring."
For guests, the most stories of strange happenings come from those who have stayed in Room 824.
"I've heard several stories... of items falling off the bathroom shelf, the lights turning on and flickering while people are trying to sleep," she said. "A lot of the experiences take place between around 3 a.m. to 4 a.m.
"This particular bathroom, the sink will turn on periodically and the bathroom will get all steamy while they're asleep, and they wake up and they walk in there and their items fall off the shelves."
Another room guests claim to have had a strange experience in is Room 443 -- also known as The Capone Suite, where infamous American gangster Al Capone stayed when he would frequent Hot Springs.
"I've had a lot of guests say that occasionally when you stay in there, you catch the smell of a cigar, and of course, it's a non-smoking hotel, so we do not know where that's coming from," Jones said. "Guests have heard the connecting doorknob turn, but you can't access that doorknob from the other room because there's no doorknob on the other side, but they'll see the doorknob like start moving."
Another area guests have experienced the unexplainable is on the seventh floor.
"I've heard several stories ... of where you see an image of a lady in a white gown walking, and there's a photograph I have, and there's no way there's any type of light, but it looks like there's two footprints on the carpet," Jones said. "It's pretty creepy."
The photograph of the footprints was taken by two guests in front of the door to Room 723.
One other recurring instance of seeing a figure guests have experienced is when a man resembling a soldier has been seen taking a bath in the men's side of the hotel's bath house.
"Come stay with us, and experience it for yourself," Jones said.