As always on our road trips, Kathy drives the vehicle while I navigate and shoot photos. This time out we decided to take a trip to Mineral Wells so I could document the Baker Hotel while it is still standing. As usual on our road trips, we took the back roads of the Texas countryside.
Road Trip to the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas - September 20, 2006
Mineral Wells, Texas is a bustling community of approximately 18,000 people located about forty miles west of Fort Worth. While modern in every way, it has a very unusual and rich history. The early history and growth of Mineral Wells dates from the time of the discovery of mineral water on the J.A Lynch farm in 1880. Legend has it that a local woman thought to be 'crazy', but actually suffering from epilepsy, drank the water and was cured. From that moment on, Mineral Wells would never be the same. Many wells were dug over the next ten to twenty years and the small ranching town became a national spa and resort town almost overnight. The population exploded from just a couple of hundred citizens to thousands in just a matter of a few years. In it's heyday, in the 1930's, the population of Mineral Wells was close to 40,000.
As fast as wells could be dug, work was also started building hotels to house all of the people arriving from all over the United States and the world. One of the earliest wells and hotels was the Crazy Water Well and Hotel. It was named after the legend of the 'crazy' woman who was healed by the waters. The Crazy Hotel was built right on top of the well in 1907. Several years later, the original hotel was destroyed by fire and the hotel was rebuilt on the same spot. There were literally dozens of hotels, bath houses, and spas built over the next couple of decades, but none of them approach the grandeur and beauty of the 'Grand Old Lady of Mineral Wells', the Baker Hotel.
The Baker Hotel was built by T.B. Baker and it opened its doors on November 9, 1929. The hotel was fourteen stories high and had 450 rooms. It towered over everything in downtown Mineral Wells and could be seen for miles from any direction. The hotel had it's own underground well and bath house and it also sported the first swimming pool ever built for a hotel in Texas. The ballroom on the 12th floor was named The Cloud Room because of the painted clouds on the ceiling. It was always busy every weekend with one band or another and became the place to be. Indeed, the Baker Hotel became a nationl phenomenon, drawing visitors from all over, especially movie stars and celebrities. Some of the well known celebrities to stay at the Baker included Gene Autry, Lucille Ball, Bonnie and Clyde, George Bush Sr., Jack Dempsey, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Jean Harlow, John F. Kennedy, Will Rogers..... and many, many more.
Time changes everything and eventually most of the bath houses and hotels closed. The Baker Hotel finally closed its doors in 1972. The hotel is still standing today and the city of Mineral Wells has been trying for years to come up with a plan to restore the old building, but to no avail. It has now been vacant for over thirty years and has fallen into bad shape. They stopped giving tours of the hotel years ago because of safety concerns. The hotel is now privately owned but once again it is up for sale. The fate of this once magnificent hotel is up in the air. No one knows what will happen to it.
If ever there was a project that needed to be shot with a view camera, this was it. But I do not shoot that format anymore, so I had to make do with my DSLR's in trying to capture the architecture of the old buildngs we found along our journey.
When we arrived in Mineral Wells, we had no access to the interior of the hotel, but we did find a large hole in the fence surrounding the property and we were able to gain access to a large portion of the exterior of the old hotel. It truly is a magnificent structure.
