The Haunted Baker Hotel
Mineral Wells, Texas
I guess by now you can see that I have “a Thing” for haunted hotels as it seems, and that more and more of the articles I write about are about haunted hotels. Well, we’re in Texas today (metaphorically speaking) and there are not just one, not just two, but three haunted hotels that I know about so I think we'll be in Texas for a couple of days LOL...
The tale of the Baker Hotel begins in 1922 when the concerned citizens of the town of Mineral Wells, were concerned that non-citizens of the town were profiting off of the growing fame of the community’s mineral water. The town managed to raise up a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in an effort to build a large hotel facility owned by local shareholdres. They then solicited the services of prominent Texas hotel magnate Theodore Brasher Baker. Next came the architect Wyatt C. Hedrick who based his design on the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is more of that kind of info than you probably wanted to know. Anyway, construction began on the Hotel in 1926 but was stopped when design issues needed to be solved. Construction began once again the following year on what was to be called “Grand” and “Opulent” and which would be described many years later as “Spanish Colonial Revival, Commercial High-rise.” And when construction was completed three years later at a total cost of one million, two hundred thousand dollar (1929 dollars) - it stood fourteen stories tall, house four hundred and fifty guest rooms, two ballrooms, an indoor beauty shop, bowling alley, gymnasium, and an outdoor, Olympic sized swimming pool filled with the local mineral water. It was also the first skyscraper to be built outside of a major metropolitan area.
When the hotel opened it’s doors on November 9, 1929 and celebrated two weeks later with a grand opening celebration gala. It boasted such extravagant creature comforts as an advanced hydraulic systems which circulated ice water to all of it’s rooms, lighting and fans that automatically came on when a guest entered the room (controlled by the room’s doorlocks opening and closing) and shut off when the left the room. The hotel was fully air conditioned by the 1940's which added to it’s appeal as a top notch convention attraction as well as a meeting capacity of 2,500 attendees. Despite it opening a mere days from the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the Baker Hotel enjoyed both fame and success, it’s star studded guest list including Glenn Miller, Lawrence Welk, Clark Gable, Judy Garland and local historians even speak of the time that Bonnie and Clyde spent a night in the hotel. But all things don’t stay the same and the passing of time can be a bad thing.
The Baker Hotel closed it’s doors for good in 1973, following decades of mismanagement, steadily declining guests due to the development of life saving and life prolonging medications following World War II, causing those who came to the region for the health benefits of the mineral wells to stop coming. There were money problems of course followed by bankruptcy. The building has sat for all of this time since, empty of the living, deteriorating from the ravages of time and nature and the constant threats of vandalism. It sounds pretty much like any old hotel that has lived and died in the span of a few decades, with nothing special about it for the most part... Oh, it’s haunted. Did I say that? Very haunted... And that leads us into a darker history for the hotel, the one that it’s present owners are not wanting to talk about... But lets tell it anyway...
The hotel was built originally if you remember, at the wish of the local townspeople who were missing out on the profits that were being generated by those who came to Mineral Wells looking for a cure to one kind of ailment or another and it was the hotel which housed many of these people. And many died within the hotel. But not just from their illnesses. There’s the story of the drunken woman who tried to jump into the swimming pool from a 12th floor balcony, who died from the fall.
There’s the story of the murder in the pantry of the kitchen. Seems that a male cook had gotten into a huge fight with his girlfriend who was a maid at the hotel. She threatened to tell the cook’s wife about their affair. Her lover of course lost his temper and all control and stabbed her to death in the pantry. And then there’s the story of Theo Baker’s mistress who committed suicide in the hotel by either jumping to her death or hanging herself in one of the suites, (the mode of her death is murky) and such a rash action can cause an eternal emotional feeling of torment, causing a spirit to be stuck on this side of the curtain of the beyond.
After the hotel closed in 1973, it was boarded up in order to try and prevent vandalism and looting of the property. Shortly after it’s closing, there are many reports by people who claimed that windows would open and close randomly by themselves, seeing them occur from the street outside or from employees such as those employed originally to keep the building in working order (plumbers, electrician, etc). There is the apparition of a little boy in a wheelchair which has been spotted on a number of occasions both before and after the hotel closed and paranormal activity has been reported on the 10th floor in the Baker Suite. Perhaps it is the ghost of old Theo Baker and another ghostly visitor, spending their afterlife together... And perhaps that other entity being the red-headed mistress of Baker, and whose been spotted a number of times in other parts of the hotel, always dressed in a long white dress, which has given rise to her name. The White Lady. She was haunting the hotel long before the hotel’s closing! It seems that in the Suite she once occupied when alive and continues to in death also has a history of paranormal events, such as the maid finding drinking glasses with lipstick on them when the room is not being used by the living.
The reports continue of course from those who pass by the old hotel on a regular basis and by those who enter into the hotel for one reason or another. On the Mezzanine level cigar smoke can be smelled, varying from just a faint ghostly whiff to a strong, knock you down aroma as though it had been blown in your direction. In the lobby, when it’;s empty and quiet, the sound of high heels clicking across the lobby floor and be heard by the living. There are 49 known spirits that haunt the Baker Hotel. Each floor of it is said to be haunted. In the kitchen Pantry, women have felt very uneasy in this area and have heard a female voice warning them to leave at once, and in the Brazos Room, orbs and smells of chocolate have been noticed and it’s rumored that the ghosts of Bonnie and Clyde haunt the room.
What next for this most haunted hotel? I will say it will continue to have a future in the world of the living as there are current plans in the works to bring life back into the old girl. And perhaps one day if you happen to be in the town of Mineral Wells and are driving about looking for a place to rest and grab a bite to eat, you’ll take a slow drive down Hubbard Street and past the Baker Hotel. And maybe if the doors are open, you can step inside and say hello for me to those who live there in the shadows...
Good day everyone!
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