The Index asked readers to share their memories and stories of the Baker Hotel. Here’s what we received:

He’s just saying ...

My grandfather, Frank Meyers Sr. (not the banker), was a pharmacist who had the pharmacy at both the Crazy Hotel and Baker Hotel. 

He always explained that he opened the pharmacy in the Baker a month before the hotel began to rent the hotel rooms in October of 1929. He operated both until he sold them to Pete McCleskey in 1948.

He was president of the Mineral Wells Chamber of Commerce some time in the ‘30s and he was always guarded about what he would say of the curative nature of Mineral Wells’ mineral water. 

He would say, “I won’t say that the mineral water here will cure people of their ills, I will only say that I could not count how many people I saw that came into the soda fountain at the pharmacy either on crutches or being carried that walked in of their own accord a few weeks later.” 

Phil Garrett, Mineral Wells

Hair and there

I’ve been a hairdresser here in Mineral Wells for almost 50 years. In 1962 I worked for Bill Cox in his beauty salon in the Baker.

I was 17 years old when I fixed Mrs. John Justin’s hair, of the Justin boot fame. A very pretty lady but I must admit that I was scared to death that I couldn’t please her. All went well.

Hairdos were $2 back then, and she tipped me well but for a young girl that was quite an experience.

The Baker was so big I seldom left the salon. Bill’s salon was located on the west side and we were always very busy. It’s sad to watch the property slowly deteriorate.

Charlsie Blocker, Mineral Wells

Lessons learned

My name is Charles (Chuck) Stone. In 1948 I was a freshman in Mineral Wells High School. Football season was over and I was desperate for a job to help support my family. I decided I wanted to go to work in the Baker Hotel restaurant as a fry cook.

I was 16 years old. First day they said they wasn’t looking for anyone but my brother encouraged me to go back the second day and ask for the job again, this time they decided to give me a try. I didn’t know a lot about cooking. But with the help of some of the kitchen help who was willing to teach me what I needed to know.

I was doing really well, till one day a local millionaire came in and ordered a chef salad. I did a good job putting it together. When the waitress served it to him, it had a fly on it. He sent it back. I was very busy so I just knocked the fly off and sent it back to him. I am not sure how he found out or how the boss found out but at the end of the day the boss said they didn’t need me any more.

One night I had worked till midnight and started to go home. I noticed two young men playing with the freight elevator. I believe one was a bell boy. I am not sure of the other one. Next day I learned one of them had died in an elevator accident. One was operating the elevator and the other tried to jump in. The door caught him in the middle and cut him in half. I have no idea what their names were. The boy operating the elevator really had a hard time dealing with the tragic death of his friend.

I grew up and spent time in the Air Force, then went into aeronautics and had a successful career. I learned from that experience I had at the Baker Hotel to never cut corners on the job, never let my work get sloppy.

I remember one time when Roy Rogers came to the Baker Hotel. He had just lost his first wife and needed to get away. He drank too much one day and went to the pool. He laid face down on his towel, maybe to get a tan, and he fell asleep. He was there several hours, and when he woke up he was so sunburned he could hardly move.

Charles Stone, Harker Heights, Texas

Turning back the clock

The Baker Hotel seemed to be such an important part of my teenage years. My father was a pilot/instructor with Fort Wolters and we had many important dinners there celebrating various milestones. My MWJHS graduation dance was held in the ballroom up near the roof. We swam in the beautiful pool often.

However, my best memory is when our high school girls basketball team won the state championship and, as their manager, I was invited along with the team to enjoy a “gratis” day at the spa from the hotel. For young women, it was a day in Heaven with special baths, massages, etc. Recently my husband and children went on a tour of the place and as soon as we got to the bathhouse floor, the years slipped away and I quickly recognized the very spa tub where I enjoyed my first whirlpool bath. Despite the wreckage and debris, I walked down the small hallway where all the message rooms were located, and it was as though I was 16 again! This “grand dame” needs to be restored for posterity.

Pat Lassalle Pilgrim, Mineral Wells

Many great memories

I was a lifeguard at the hotel pool during the mid to late 1960s. I remember the Baker always being busy, but during the summer months the hotel was full. There were people from all over the country, but mostly families from Fort Worth and Dallas, as well as Brazos Club members from the local area. I do recall a gentleman who had just hit oil near Mineral Wells. He stayed at the Baker for the weekend, and gave a $100 tip to buy him suntan lotion in the Hotel Drug Store. There are many great memories!

John Harbus, Prosper, Texas

Big names at the Baker

As a young boy growing up in Mineral Wells I spent a lot of time in the Baker. I ate many hamburgers at the hamburger stand by the pool. My father, M.C. Davis, went from bellhop to general manager during this time. My grandfather, Bill Jackson, roofed the Baker. His wife, my grandmother, Reece, worked in the laundry room for many years. Richard Nixon’s campaign manager, a guy named White, received a death threat while he was staying at the Baker. The Secret Service was all over the hotel. My father at one time had a register with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signature. Lorne Green, Mel Tillis and Gary Stewart are a few of the names I remember.

Mark Davis

Tricks of the bellhops

Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s I played golf with three guys whom had all grown up in the Mineral Wells area. Their stories were all so interesting to listen to, especially the stories from one man I’ll identify as Sid. While still in his teens, Sid worked as a bellboy at the Baker. He told me about a little black book that he carried around all the time. Inside that black book were notes about every guest that he worked with. He even knew the names of a few white poodles. Calling a guest by their first name after their second or third appearance there meant more tips, he’d say. Competition among the bellboys must have been tough.

Sid told about a little game they had going. Every day, they’d pool a certain amount of money and at the end of the day, the one taking in the most tips took home all of the pool money.

There were also some “tricks of the trade,” I guess you could call it. Everyone knew that not all couples who came there were man and wife. Sid told about one real affluent looking man that came to the Baker one day with a real cutie by his side. A quick look at the little black book told Sid this lady was not this man’s wife. Very calmly, Sid checked the couple in and after waiting a few minutes, knocked on their door. “Excuse me,” he said to the man. “Doesn’t your wife drive a white Chevy convertible? I think she pulled into the parking garage.” After a few moments of panic; Sid, the couple, and their bags were all headed down the service elevator. A very large tip followed.

There were other tricks like the one he’d pull during business meetings. Again, he’d wait until the meeting was in progress, he’d then very casually walk in the room, place a bottle of “bootleg whiskey” on the table and then just stand there with that “where’s my money look?” Someone would always pay up, he said.

Many times during our years together, I saw Sid get that big grin on his face and tell people, “I made more money than the doctor did back then!” I’ll bet he also had a lot of fun.

Jim Jones, Mineral Wells

Dances in the roof garden

In 1934, when I got to my room, upstairs, after working until 9 p.m., I could hear the Jack Amlung’s Orchestra playing for dances on the roof garden of the Baker Hotel. They played from 8 p.m. to midnight on Saturday nights. Part of Jack Amlung’s Orchestra played inside the Baker Hotel Sunday afternoons to entertain the hotel guests.

Lillie Glover (now deceased) worked in the basement, sewing and mending whatever needing fixing for the hotel. The First Methodist Church choir went to the Baker Hotel and sang carols for the guests one Sunday afternoon before Christmas.

Bessie Glover, Mineral Wells

The Birk Twins

My name is Ed Birk and my twin brother and I performed at the Baker Hotel. We were an acrobatic act known as the Birk Twins and appeared there on two separate occasions in 1955.

Once was with Tito Guizar. He was a famous cowboy from Mexico, kind of on the scale of a Gene Autry. Then we appeared with the Freddy Martin Orchestra in the beautiful Dome.

Tito Guizar and the Birk Twins appeared on the second floor room. Unfortunately, we do not have photos of that particular performance, but we have some shots taken of us professionally. Your article brought back some great memories. We were awed by the lobby and walking up the magnificent staircase.

Ed Birk, Kennedale, Texas

The Baker in its heyday

Living in Mineral Wells in the late 1930s and through most of the ‘50s is an experience I love to think back on a lot. That was in the Baker’s heyday. It was really going well.

As I grew up, there were things I did in the hotel. I swam in the pool and went to dances on the top floor. I was also interviewed on the radio by Thelma Doss. The studio was on the mezzanine floor. I was in the girl scouts, and my troop went to be on the show. We were all asked questions. The program was sponsored by a bakery and they drew numbers to win a cake. My number was drawn, which I shared with my fellow scouts except for one slice, to take home to my mother.

As I went to high school there, we had a dance on the top floor, for which we went to the top floor every night for a week to decorate.

Another time is when the high school was having a bake sale. My friend, Irene, and I with Mrs. Feidler were assigned to the basement of the Baker.

As I was a graduate in MWHS, the senior girls were to have breakfast in a small dining room. There Thelma Dodd was a guest speaker that day at the Baker Hotel.

To grow up in Mineral Wells was something to remember forever.

Eugenia Walker Gruben, Mineral Wells (class of 1954)

Those were the days

I was employed by the Baker Hotel to run the guest elevator. This was about 1944, not sure of the year.

I believe this was my first time to ride in an elevator. It had a big round wheel. Rotate the wheel left or right and the elevator would go up or down. When stopping at a floor and opening the door I would say either “up please” or “down please” to anyone standing there. It was a fun job. I would have done it for free. I got to see and sometimes talk to all the guests in the hotel. It was wartime and people seemed so happy and so secure. I looked forward to being an adult like that.

I remember when working there for a few days, I was told they were getting me a Social Security card. I did not know what that was, but that was OK. I was beginning to feel like a regular employee, and then the elevator stopped between floors. There were two guests with me. They did not say very much as we were all surprised. I looked down the shaft to the bottom, then looked up and could see that the top of the elevator was some two feet below the upper floor. I managed to pull myself up enough to stand on the top of the elevator roof, reach the handle and open the door to the mezzanine floor. I got a little grease on my shirt from the cables. I reported it to the lobby desk and soon it was working again. There was some corrective comments, but it was one of those times when if it turned out all right, then it was OK.

When not moving, the elevator was to be parked on the lobby floor and open. I would greet guests as they walked by. In the evening, I would park it on the mezzanine floor for a few minutes to watch the man play the grand piano. It was such a pretty view. He would say a few words while guests were being seated. He was soft spoken and talked a little funny. I always wondered who he was, as there were many notable people who came to Mineral Wells in those days.

Those were the days my friend. It was a happy remembrance of times growing up in Mineral Wells.

Raymond Leon Gruben, (class of 1947), Mineral Wells

Hello, Icky

It was the summer of 1961. I ran the elevator at night and on weekends. One Saturday afternoon the buzzer sounded for a pickup for my elevator – when I got to the floor and opened the door there, in bathrobe and funny pinched hat, stood Icky Twerp of “Slam Bang Theater” fame. His name was Bill Camfield and he was born in Mineral Wells. As kids we had all watched “Slam Bang Theater” a long time so I was rather impressed with my passenger. Someone I didn’t recognize was with him so the only conversation was a normal “Hello, how are you” greeting.

Mike Chamberlain, Mineral Wells

Swimming after lights out

I have great memories of the Baker Hotel.  The Visions played in the second floor ballroom, even after they moved to California. We also attended functions up in the roof garden. A large group of us often swam in the Baker pool, usually after lights out.

Ron Youngblood, 
Fort Worth

A culinary destination

My dad, Gilbert Valdez,Sr., was the head chef at the Baker Hotel for many years. I specifically remember people coming from all over Texas (and out of state) just to eat the excellent food that he and his talented team prepared. One of the favorite menu items was the Thanksgiving meal (turkey, dressing, gravy, etc.).

Gilbert Valdez

The Baker had it all

I went to work at the Baker Hotel in 1952 as a maid when I was 16 years old. The housekeeping department was on the 13th floor then, later on the ground floor. Some of the maids were Esselean Cass, Effie Tyler, Roberta Nalley, Irene McCracken and Icie Radford.

My mother and father met at the hotel in the late 1920s. My mother, Ethel Sanders, worked in the coffee shop/dining room. My father, James Myers, worked in the food storage department.

Mrs. Baker would come from San Antonio with her personal maid. Her apartment was on the south end of the 11th floor. Her bedroom had a round bed and one bathroom had a bridal.

Things I had never seen before. Mr. Baker would come with his chauffeur, Brown. Mr. Baker had a three-room apartment on the seventh floor.

Some of the men, or “hall boys” as they were called, were “Papa Frank” Anders, Ollie V. Anders, Pat Patterson, Mose, George McCracken and Sonny Blue.

When big conventions would come, the hall boys had to set up a large end of the 10th floor with long tables. Then service elevators would have its cover opened and the tables stuck through into the shaft. One time there was about 30 cots set up on the 12th floor to accommodate an overflow of convention people. Food was taken up to the guests rooms on rolling tables with metal containers below to keep the food hot. Some of the waiters were Ted Jackson Sr. and Ted Jackson Jr., Archie Heywood, “Little” Frank Anders and Charles Poole.

Some of the cooks were my uncle Major Sanders, James Daniels, Stanley Murphy, Gilbert Valdez, Jesse Gonzales, Picolo Gonez and Phil James.

I later worked on the service elevator. Some of my bosses were Mutt Huddleston, Jerry Ledbetter and Paul Brooks.

My father was working at the hotel when I was 4 years old. He took, me up into the highest tower to look out over the town. Then he took me to the Brazos Club where a big party was being set up. On a table of food was a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. What a sight for a young girl to see.

Some of the engineers were my father, “Red” Newberry, Jack Chandler, Melvin Burns, Johnny Thompson and my son’s father, Max Ackerman and Mutt Camfield.

The painters were Aubra Cooper Jr. and a Mr. Tatum.

The hotel had almost everything it needed. An auditor’s office where payroll was done, a laundry and dry cleaning department ran by Percy Davis. A shoeshine stand, a bath house for the guests, a drug store, dress shop, Dr. Zappe, the dentist’s office and Dr. O’Quin’s office.

The hotel was almost always full and employees had little time for “horseplay.” Mineral Wells was lucky to have a place where so many people could find diverse types of work. The work found there kept bread on the tables for many families in really hard times.

Barbara Wenninger, Mineral Wells

Meeting Judy Garland

In the 1940’s, Lawrence Scott, my husband, worked at the Baker Hotel in the maintenance department.

Judy Garland came to Mineral Wells for a visit to the Baker Hotel. Lawrence wanted to see her so the guys in the maintenance department said that the air conditioning in Miss Garland’s room had a problem and they sent Lawrence up to her room to take care of it. Miss Garland was in her room at the time, as the story goes. She was sitting at her vanity in her dressing gown. She let Lawrence in to work on the air conditioning and he got to see her in person. This was probably one of his greatest moments because he told everyone back then he got to see her in person and that she was very nice.

Betty Scott

Where I met my wife

A good thing come out of the Baker Hotel. As a teenager after school I worked in the kitchen as a cook’s helper. That’s were I met my beautiful wife of 49 years, Sandra. She was working as an elevator operator. I never met or seen any celebrities.

On the other hand my good friend, Lavon Anders Dunbar Neighborhood Council director, was a waiter. I prepared the food and he would deliver to room service. I know he must of had some encounter with some celebrities because he always had tip money in every pocket.

I left the Baker Hotel in 1965. A copy of my lest pay check for a week is enclosed.

Three grown children and four beautiful grandchildren later, my wife and I still work together today.

Jesse Gonzales, Jesse’s Drive-In, Mineral Wells

Baker is where father learned to cook

In 1933, my Dad’s sister, Jackie Freeman, and new husband, H.U. “Buster” Freeman, invited my Dad to come to Mineral Wells, live with them and complete his senior year in high school. Dad (Cleburne Martin, also known as “Percy”) came, but became very homesick and wanted to go back to East Texas.

Aunt Jackie begged him to stay just six months, telling him if he could just stick it out, he would never want to go back to East Texas.

And she was right!

Uncle Buster was a cook at the Baker Hotel, and the morning after my dad graduated, Buster woke him up, telling him, “Get dressed, you’re coming to work with me.” And work he did, beginning at the bottom of the job scale in the Baker Hotel kitchen. His job was washing glasses. He put the glasses in large racks and then slid the racks into some type of machine for soaping and scalding. The kitchen was a hot place to work in those days before air conditioning.

Dad advanced to fry cook before he was hired away by the Crazy Hotel for a 5 cents-a-day raise! Though he later earned his living with the post office, he became a very good cook, preparing our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners until he could teach mother all the tricks. His hot cakes became legendary among friends and relatives, and no one has yet been able to make the recipe like he did!

In later years, Dad and I were driving by the Baker and he told me how he used to help make canape trays and food trays for the fancy parties held on the mezzanine balconies. He said he never attended any of the parties himself, but he remembered how pretty the lighted lanterns and decorations looked from street level.

On Mother’s side of the family, her sister, Winnie Lou Herrin, was a waitress at the Baker Coffee Shop, a position she really enjoyed because of all the dignitaries she was able to serve. And no customers tipped like those at the Baker!

Once during World War II, Mother (Clara Belle Middleton Martin) and her “sewing club,” as someone has called it, dressed in their finest suits, hats and gloves for a luncheon at the Baker. They lined up in four rows on the front steps of the hotel, about 20 of them, and had a very memorable picture made.

What memories!

My junior year in high school we held our Junior-Senior Banquet in the Baker’s Roof Garden ballroom. I remember helping to decorate for “An Evening in Paris” theme, complete with red-checkered tablecloths in a sidewalk cafe setting.

In the summer of 1957 I came home from college with Asian flu and paid a visit to Dr. Ben McCloud, whose office was – you guessed it – in the Baker Hotel. June of 1958 again found me at the Baker, this time actually checking into a room (No. 949) with new hubby, Gene Denman.

In those days we never dreamed that the Baker would ever be anything but a thriving and busy destination for hundreds of visitors.

That’s just what it is in our happy memories.

Jacquelyn Martin, Denman, Cleburne, Texas

Special memories

During World War II my Dad was drafted and was sent from Houston County, Texas, to Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells for his basic training. My Mom, my older brother and I made one trip there in late spring of 1944 to visit Dad before he was shipped to Kansas for mechanized cavalry training.

We enjoyed our visit very much, especially the time spent at the Baker Hotel. This was an adventure for a 5-year-old boy.

In the summer of 1956, I met a young girl from Mineral Wells at a church camp for youth near Mexia, Texas. We were both to be freshmen at Abilene Christian College in September of that year. After two years together at college, we fell for each other like a “ton of bricks” and were married in Mineral Wells in June of 1958.

We spent our first honeymoon night at the Baker Hotel. What a follow-up to my 1944 adventure on the Camp Wolters trip! What a hotel! I still love it today.

Gene Denman, Cleburne, Texas

Stories for the children, grandchildren

My husband and I were married on Aug. 5, 1961, in Weatherford. He made arrangements at the Baker Hotel for our room and to park his car in the garage there. He had just had his 1948 Chevy painted black and didn’t want his friends to put shoe polish all over it, which they said they were going to do.

The morning of the wedding, my mother followed him to the Hotel to leave his car and drove him back.

After the wedding and reception, mu aunt and uncle drove us back to the hotel. We went up to our room on the 10th floor. When we turned on the AC, it didn’t work. It was hot in August. We called room service and they sent a man to fix it. He looked it over and said it will take a while. We said that OK.

We sat on the end of the bed and talked to him while he was working. When he finished, he said, “I’m really sorry because this is your wedding night.” We told him it was OK. It would be something to tell our children and grandchildren someday. We all had a big laugh.

It was late and we were hungry, so we called room service. We were told everything was closed but they could fix us chicken salad sandwiches and cokes, which they did and were really good.

Well, that’s our little experience with the Baker Hotel. Wouldn’t have it any other way. We have a good laugh every anniversary.

Joe and Wanda Burkhart, Poolville

Heartbreak at the Baker Hotel

The grand lady that is the Baker Hotel has played a part in this man’s life seemingly forever. I probably could write a book on it, as many others could I’m sure. I had intended to write separate stories, but after a list of difficulties I’ll spare the reader.

I decided to begin at the beginning of my memory.

My older brother, Jerry, younger brother, Billy, and I were very familiar to the bellhops and staff of the Baker Hotel, back in the early and mid-1950s. We’d been escorted out on a regular basis, usually called by name. Other than the memories of shortcutting thru the coffee shop street entrance, into the boy’s room, then a dash passed Leon’s shoeshine stand and out the west-side door, I recall the day of considerable heartbreak.

On a bright Saturday morning I made my barefoot way to Pemberton’s Plumbing and Appliance store (presently Downtown Video), where they had the only record shop in town, nestled in the back comer. Money saved from my Fort Wolter’s paper route was going to buy my very first 78 rpm record. We didn’t have a record player but my friend Curtis did. The choice was a near unknown, Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” backed with “ Love Me Tender,” was my easy choice.

Business done, it was time for me to take on my Rex Allen persona, climb on my invisible steed and head back to the ranch. As I rode fast after the saloon keeper, who had taken off with the hotel cashbox, we rode up tight against the swimming pool fence, I jumped him from behind, across his horse (heroes always did that in those days). Well, as we tumbled down the “hill” from the pool fence to the side walk Elvis got caught under it all. That brand new, flat black record was flat broke in two. I walked home slowly that day, heartbroken.

My friend Curtis had a record of Fats Domino’s, I think it was “ Blueberry Hill.” What genius that Curtis was. We glued Elvis to Fats and suddenly we had the only copy in the world of “Heartbreak Hotel” backed up with “Blueberry Hill.”

Many a Saturday like the one mentioned above would take me past Thelma Doss’ house on S.E. 6th Avenue (now a vacant lot). A short visit would include cookies and a lesson in voice control. Then off we’d go past the Baker and on to one of three movie houses.

Little did I know, but Thelma Doss and the Baker Hotel would play a big part in my future. Into the late ‘50s, after getting a minor’s release and a Social Security card, I went on to be a 14-year-old vegetable cook at the Baker along with Jesse Gonzales (Jesse’s Drive In). During that summer I was called on several times to take vegetable plates up to Mr. Baker in the famous Baker suite. At the age of 16, after being certified and trained, I was a summer lifeguard at the Baker pool under Martin Knipp. It was the summer I met a real girl in a yellow polka dot bikini.

April Fool’s day I did my first radio music show at the radio station, then located in the northwest ground level corner of the

Baker Hotel. With help and guidance from the likes of Thelma Doss, Gene Hutto, Don Sitton, Max Floyd, A.F. Weaver, Ralph Harbus, Johnny Goffand and others my skills improved.

In 1965, Don Sitton had become manager of KORC and called to see if I wanted to leave my job at Southern Airways for full time radio, with pay. Among the perks was a once-per-week trip to the Baker bathhouse for the full treatment complete with a massage by “Willie.” I also recall many “after parties” in the Baker with the likes of The Drifters, Jimmy Reed, Jimmy Velvet and well-known country western artists who appeared at the old Bill’s Gold Nugget Dance Hall.

Finally, before the oil, banking, and real estate bust of the late 1980s, while associated with Showcase Properties and president of the Revitalization Committee, I was the local listing agent in early attempts to bring this beautiful

lady back to the life. I pray I will live to see her smile again, to sparkle and shine in the night skies. I long for the day I can add a final page to my Baker file. The front page of the Index will read, in bold type, “Baker Hotel Reopened Today.”

Let it be. Amen.

J.W. Jay Harrison, Mineral Wells