Baker Hotel

About this property

The Baker Hotel is a hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. The Baker Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The story of the Baker Hotel began in 1922, when citizens of Mineral Wells, concerned that noncitizens were profiting from the growing fame of the community's mineral water, raised $150,000 in an effort to build a large hotel facility owned by local shareholders. They solicited the services of prominent Texas hotel magnate Theodore Brasher Baker, who gained fame by designing and building such grand hotels as the Baker Hotel in Dallas and the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, and managed the Connor Hotel in Joplin, Missouri. Architect Wyatt C. Hedrick based the hotel design on the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which was known for its water and baths. Construction began on the hotel in 1926, but was stopped after Mr. Baker made a trip to California, where he visited a hotel with a swimming pool, and decided the new Baker Hotel must have one in the front of the hotel. The swimming pool was placed on top of an already-completed basement, which was used as a work area for the hotel and a changing area for guests. An Olympic-sized pool to be filled with the curing mineral waters, it was the first swimming pool built at a hotel in the state of Texas. Construction began the following year on the grand and opulent structure, which was described by Palo Pinto County historian John Winters as a "Spanish Colonial Revival, Commercial Highrise." It would rise 14 stories over Mineral Wells, and house 450 guest rooms, two ballrooms, an in-house beauty shop, and other novelties such as a bowling alley, a gymnasium, and an outdoor swimming pool. Completed three years later with a cost of $1.2 million (equivalent to US$23,000,000 in 2025), the Baker Hotel, the tallest building in the city at the time of completion, instantly dominated the city skyline. Several notable celebrities made the Baker Hotel a temporary home during their visits to the city's health spas; the star-studded guest list included Glenn Miller, Lawrence Welk, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Roy Rogers, future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, and even The Three Stooges. It is even rumored by local historians that legendary outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow may have spent a night or two at the Baker Hotel. The Baker Hotel opened to the public on November 9, 1929, and celebrated with a grand-opening celebration gala two weeks later on November 22. It boasted extravagant creature comforts such as an advanced hydraulic system that circulated ice water to all 450 guest rooms, lighting and fans controlled by the door locks that shut off and on automatically when the guest left or arrived in their rooms, and a valet compartment where guests could deposit soiled laundry that was accessible by hotel staff without them ever even having to enter the guest's room. Though it opened mere days after the 1929 stock market crash, the Baker Hotel enjoyed immense success throughout the 1930s, largely due to Mineral Wells's growing reputation as a top-tier health spa destination.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Palo Pinto County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Palo Pinto County.

More historic places in Texas

Browse all historic places in Texas.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Texas history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.