25 Profile of a Place: “The Baker Hotel”
Miranda Waugh
Dr. Jackie Hoermann-Elliott
ENG 1013 50 Composition I
February 28, 2022
Cover Letter
I began by researching the Baker Hotel, interviewing someone well-versed on the subject, and then thought carefully about the themes that jumped out to me. I began creating an outline to capture all those ideas and then adjusted the order to put similar topics together. It quickly became apparent as I started writing that I would need to cut topics to focus on my main controlling theme of how the town of Mineral Wells’ economic health is tied to the success of the Baker Hotel.
After my outline was complete, it was very easy to begin writing as I had a clear idea of what direction I wanted this piece to go. My initial draft ended up quite close to where my final draft was. I have gone through my profile of a place and looked for repeating words and phrases, sought help from my professor, sought help from the Write Site twice, and read it aloud to look for clunky sentence structures. Each of these actions helped me better streamline the paper in different ways.
Some of the genre conventions of this profile of a place would be providing details on my focus topic, offering very descriptive language to help the reader be transported to a place they may have never seen. It also involved doing a great deal of research for both primary and secondary sources as well as citing them properly. Each of these sources needed to be paraphrased or quoted correctly so as to attribute information taken from them to the correct source. Additionally, it was very beneficial to include photos to help the reader connect with the material so they could have a frame of reference for what I was describing.
The genre conventions for this piece really challenged me to think about what different sources I would need and where to find them. I appreciated that this paper helped me grow in how I prepared for an assignment. In high school, I could usually get by writing papers without doing a proper outline; I always felt like an outline slowed me down. I preferred to just start writing, see where it took me, and then provide my outline from there. For this assignment I really enjoyed the way the outline process was framed and it made a lot more sense to me. The way the outline process was explained to just be writing out key phrases and concepts and then reordering them to group together similar topics really resonated with me. I also enjoyed seeing how many different outline styles there are, including reverse outlining. It truly helped me use the outline as a tool, instead of viewing it as something I had to do (but didn’t serve me). Actually creating an outline drastically aided my efforts and made the writing process so much easier. It turns out I had been reverse outlining for decades and never knew it.
The Baker Hotel: From the Past, a Way Forward
“It’s like walking into a Hollywood movie from yesteryear.” says Randy Lawrence about the Baker Hotel. Towering over the rest of the town of 15,000 with 14 floors, the “Grand Old Lady” was built by T.B. Baker back in 1929 to have a massive sprawl, comments Lawrence. Mineral Wells and the Baker Hotel drew huge crowds, including many Hollywood elite, Lawrence continues. After it closed in 1972, the town’s economy steadily declined and didn’t change trajectory much until plans for the Baker Hotel’s renovation were finally made official (Lawrence). Since that process began about three years ago, according to Lawrence, the town has seen a huge uptick in new businesses and enjoyed a revival. Mineral Wells may be named for the many wells of “crazy water” over the years, but it certainly owes its place on the map, and more importantly its economic health, to the Baker Hotel. Over the years, the rise, decline, and then renovation of the hotel has become a barometer of the health of the town itself. The “Grand Old Lady” is, in more than one way, the heart of Mineral Wells, Texas.
Ask anyone in Mineral Wells about the Baker Hotel, and they’ll have something to say about it. Some of the town’s older residents may remember staying there; I remember getting to spend the night a few times decades after it closed, a time when you could rent the entire decrepit hotel out for the night as a sort of experience for you and some friends. I distinctly remember spending the night in this looming, stone hotel after it was abandoned but before they stopped allowing people in.
Upon entry, I was immediately struck by the sheer scale of the lobby. It was obvious that guests were intended to feel as though they had entered the epitome of opulence. The grand ballroom was palatial and musty even 20 years ago, but you couldn’t help but feel connected to history there. The curling, fragile wallpaper and paint looked like it was at one time quite fancy, but now simply hints at what this place once was. It was easy to look at the moth-ridden curtains that remained and wonder who might have pulled one back to peek out at the grounds while waiting for the band to strike up and the ballroom to come alive with loud music and frivolity.
Then the real fun started when you began to explore the hotel and discover its many, many secrets. As you emerged at the top and surveyed Baker’s suite many folks would talk of Baker’s proclivities for hooch during the prohibition, his mistress’s room located several floors below, or even his secret liquor cabinet that more seasoned Baker aficionados would show you with great pride.
The sensation of the Baker Hotel didn’t just happen, although one could argue it is a marvel that this looming, sleeping giant, which feels so out of place among all the smaller buildings clinging to her skirts, even existed. So how did this small little town so far west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex obtain its special status as the first air-conditioned hotel in Texas with a price tag of $1.2 million (Blakey)? Well, for that answer we must go back a bit.
The town really was founded on water. According to The Baker Hotel and Spa website, when the first settler, later the first mayor, James Lynch, had a well dug, the water tasted off. Worried, Lynch watered his livestock first. When they didn’t suffer any dire consequences, he and his family started drinking the water themselves. Oddly enough, they enjoyed some relief from maladies long suffered, namely rheumatism. As word spread of these healing waters, the family’s farm was quickly overrun by inquiring strangers, and the town of Mineral Wells was born in 1881 (“History”). Several wells were dug, but the most notable was the Crazy Well, named for reports of an old woman who drank enough of this well water that she was “cured” of her mental illness due to high levels of lithium in the water (“History”). By 1926 when T.B. Baker first began construction on the Baker Hotel, news of the healing properties of the waters of Mineral Wells was bringing huge crowds of tourists eager to try its healing properties for themselves (“History”).
At the peak of the Baker Hotel’s success, Mineral Wells was seeing over 150,000 visitors annually, according to Lawrence, and while not all of them could stay in the Baker Hotel’s 460 rooms, many visited the spas and even more frequented the various businesses that sprung up around the Baker Hotel, such as bath houses, mineral water drinking stands, and even the Crazy Water Hotel, as Lawrence recalls.
During the Baker Hotel’s storied past, it has had many famous guests, including Judy Garland, Clark Gable, the Three Stooges, a couple past U.S. presidents (“History”). If you hear Lawrence tell it, Bonnie and Clyde may have even stayed the night. Upon his retirement, T.B. Baker turned the hotel over to his nephew Earl Baker in 1952; 11 years later the Baker Hotel closed, but in 1965 civic leaders reopened it only to face poor profits, and ultimately, it was shuttered in 1972 (“History”). There it sat for decades, empty, languishing and watching over the town as Mineral Wells withered around it.
Starting in 1999, financing groups began long-term plans to attempt to gain enough funding to renovate the Baker Hotel, but it wasn’t until a couple decades later, in 2019, that a $65 million project officially started as “the largest historical renovation of a building in Texas” (“History,” Lawrence). Lawrence goes on to explain that the renovation was only possible due to the architectural brilliance of the foundation and framing of the building. The project manager for the Baker Hotel renovation, Mark Rawlings, marvels over the craftsmanship of the time and remarks how challenging it is to match it (Blakey).
Despite the renovation taking longer than initially anticipated, many businesses have been revitalized or new ones have sprung up as progress on the Baker Hotel renovation continues (Blakey, Heid). Randy and Misty Nix, local business owners, created The Market at 76067, which is home to a trendy indoor marketplace designed to showcase and sell the creations of local artisans, housing a restaurant, bar, and coffee stop (Heid). While they aren’t alone in revitalization efforts in Mineral Wells, the impending reopening of the Baker Hotel has certainly driven renewed interest, drawing new tourist traffic by offering shopping and restaurants that both pay homage to the roots of the town and offer a fresh face to new visitors, as Lawrence puts it.
Amid all its history, the Baker Hotel holds many secrets, yet reinvigorating Mineral Wells may be its greatest trick yet. As thrilling as it is to watch the bustle and excitement the town has for the Baker Hotel during renovation, I can’t wait to see what the “Grand Old Lady” holds for the many admirers awaiting her re-opening.
Works Cited
Blakey, Katy. “Inside the Massive Restoration of the Historic Baker Hotel.” NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, 27 May 2021, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/ inside-the-massive-restoration-of-the-historic-baker-hotel/2641703/.
Heid, Jason. “No Longer Waiting on the Baker.” Texas Monthly, 1 Mar. 2019, pp. 22–24.
The Market at 76067. https://www.themarketat76067.com/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2022.
Lawrence, Randy. Personal interview. 9 Feb. 2022.
“History.” The Baker Hotel and Spa, 19, July 2022, https://thebakerhotelandspa.com/history/