The

The ''Old Hardy Hotel'' Antique Mall

204 E. Main St.

Hardy, Arkansas

72542

Proprietors.......Steve and Marcia Weaver Phone 870-856-2690

Welcome to the Old Hardy Hotel Antique Mall. Located in North East Arkansas in the beautiful Ozark Mountains

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The Old Hardy Hotel was built in 1898 as close as we can tell. It was built with 11 rooms and an outhouse in the back. The first people to run the hotel were Jim and Effie Lane.

Their relatives still live in the area. The upstairs is accessible from the back street. When the city put in water and electric sometime in the 1920’s, the last room in the back was made into a bathroom. Originally it was a hotel for the railroad workers and became a boarding house somewhere along the line. We believe it had a tavern, dining room and kitchen along with the lobby downstairs. It was a hotel as late as 1967 that we know of from a man who told us he stayed here then the night before he took the Greyhound Bus to boot camp.

Sometime in the early 1940’s a murder was committed in the front room upstairs. It was a soldier home on leave and he got into a bar fight across the street. Two men came in the back entrance and robbed and murdered him. His murderers were caught and found guilty but not sure of the sentence. Some people think they were hanged. This information came from a gentleman whose father was in the Posse that tracked them down and arrested them.

The building next door (Moss Antiques) was the carriage house for the hotel. The hotel has a door to the corral in back of the carriage house that is now blocked in and goes nowhere.

We understand that at one time it was a “house of ill repute”. Someone told us it was called the Blue Goose. I guess Hardy was a really rough town at one time. It also has been called the Ozark Hotel.

There have been reports of ghosts in the hotel for many years. Some think it is a man, maybe the man who was killed here. One gentleman that lived here moved out due to the noises and odd events such as marbles being left at the top of the stairs to trip on.

The recent former owner had many experiences with spirits moving items around in the doll shop that was in the hotel. She thinks it is a young girl. She also had experiences with pranks such as moving her pencils and rearranging her desk. She is the one that took this picture of the ghost. She was at her desk one evening and felt something cold move thought the room so she grabbed her camera and shot a picture in the direction that she felt the movement and she caught this image. As you can see, everything behind the ghost is clear and in focus and is the only picture on the roll that came out that way. Most people seem to sense the ghost or ghosts are mischievous and not mean.

We have had lights turned on and off when we are not here. People call us to tell us we left all of the lights on at night but they would be off next morning and a few times the open sign has been up when we come in to town. We are very careful about how we leave the building in the evening because of the age of the building we can’t leave lights on so we check it very carefully. We have not seen the ghost ourselves but have felt it’s presence and heard footsteps on the second floor when we know no one is up there. Many folks have come to the hotel because they have heard family stories about the ghost and want to see where it is. We have the room where the murder was committed fixed up as it might have looked in the 30s or 40s. Many customers have felt the ghost’s presence without knowing the history. One man came downstairs in a hurry and was quite frightened because a drawer on a chest had opened and closed without any help. He proceeded to tell a number of people in town about it and it got back to us at a merchant gathering some weeks later.

We have had a lady tell us her husband was born upstairs in the 1920s and Lyn Clark told us he was born upstairs in 1947.

If anyone that has any information or pictures about the hotel, we would love to talk to you.