public

Heavily Investigated

Fourteen floors of Spanish Revival grandeur rising off the West Texas plain — the Baker Hotel does not hide what it is. Over 29 people died within these walls, including a bellhop boy crushed by the elevator mid-shift. Visitors report the ghost of T.B. Baker's mistress drifting the seventh floor, trailing lavender perfume before she vanishes — much as she did in life, from a window. Cigar smoke blooms in empty corridors where Baker himself once walked. The sick came here desperate for a cure; some never left, and people who linger after dark swear the building knows they're there.

T.B. Baker and architect Wyatt C. Hendrick opened this 14-story, 450-room resort in 1929 — mere weeks after the stock market crash, because timing is everything. Built to capitalize on Mineral Wells' mineral-water craze (locals called it "Crazy Water" and swore it cured everything), the Baker attracted Bonnie and Clyde, Judy Garland, and the Three Stooges. It was Texas's first hotel with an indoor pool. The Depression buckled it by 1932; it served as military housing 1941–44, reopened briefly through 1972, and has sat vacant since — now mid-restoration, due to reopen around 2026.