Texas

The Baker was built by hotel magnate T. B. Baker who already owned the Baker in Dallas and the Saint Anthony in San Antonio. The Crazy Well Hotel AKA The Crazy Hotel had proven that the business was there in Mineral Wells. When the Crazy burned in 1925 - a more lavish hotel was planned with twice the number of stories of the Crazy and more than twice the number of rooms.

The "new" Crazy - rebuilt on the foundations of the old - had 7 stories and 200 rooms compared to the Baker's 14 stories and 450 rooms. The Baker had 11 floors for rooms with space for 50 "apartments" above the main roofline. These premium rooms had the benefit of the rooftop "solarium."

The Baker was modeled after the Arlington Hotel which still operates in Hot Springs, Arkansas - also built by Wyatt Hendrick. The Baker opened it's doors just two weeks after the stock market crash of 1929. It filed for bankruptcy in 1932, but new owners kept the building open. It served as military dependent quarters from 1941 to 1944 and remained open until 1963.

It reopened briefly from 1965-1972 but the doors have been shut since then.

Mr. Baker had his 3 bedroom, five-bath apartment on the 7th floor. A place that is reportedly haunted by the ghost of his mistress. Even today, with it's ghosts, broken windows and bats, it's easy to imagine the hotel's salad days in the 1930s when anyone with $35 dollars could get a week's stay with baths, massages and all the water they could keep down.

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