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Mineral Wells And The Baker Hotel

Posted: 02.05.2021 | Updated: 03.06.2025

The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, once a glamorous luxury resort, now sits abandoned. The haunted hotel’s main attraction was once the cold mineral water pumped into each room. Drawn from the city’s mineral springs, locals believed that it had healing properties.

The hotel opened two weeks after the stock market crash that launched the country into the Great Depression. Despite enduring financial difficulties, the Baker Hotel was a hit, bringing in politicians, singers, actors, and notorious outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde.

Even during its heyday, the hotel was haunted. Ghosts, spirits, murders, and suicides plagued the hotel. In 1972, the Baker Hotel closed down for good due to financial difficulties. The empty hotel now attracts an assortment of vandals, vagrants, urban explorers, and ghost hunters.

Those looking for a thrill are sure to find a myriad of ghosts and spirits from the hotel’s glory days. From the mystery of the embalmed body, to a bloody murder in the kitchen, to a bellboy who was crushed under an elevator; the Baker Hotel has quite a few stories to tell.

Austin tends to tell such stories as the ones swirling through the Baker Hotel. Book an Austin ghost tour with Austin Ghosts!

Is The Baker Hotel In Mineral Wells Haunted?

The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas, is widely believed to be haunted. Visitors and ghost hunters claim to have seen apparitions, heard unexplained noises, and felt eerie presences throughout the building. Owner T.B. Baker, his misterss, and many other ill-fated victims of the hotel’s past are said to haunt the old and empty building.

Easily one of the most haunted places in Texas, this Mineral Wells hotel is an uncomparable part of the Lone Star State’s haunted legacy.

The Baker Hotel and The Mineral Wells

Mineral Wells was a town that thrived on tourism. The city’s spring wells which, before the advent of modern medicine, were believed to bring youth and cure diseases and ailments drew huge crowds.

Numerous health spas capitalized on the spring water and helped bring a steady supply of tourists into town. But, in 1922, Mineral Wells residents, concerned that non-citizens were profiting from the city’s famed spring water, confronted entrepreneur T.B. Baker. Soon plans for a magnificent hotel was underway.

Baker began construction in 1926, hiring renowned southern architect Wyatt C. Hendrick. However, it was briefly halted when Baker visited a luxury resort in California that had a large swimming pool and decided that the Baker Hotel should have one.

They added a swimming pool filled with the city’s healing mineral water. In fact, the hotel became the first luxury hotel with a swimming pool in Texas.

The stock market crashed two weeks before the Baker Hotel’s grand opening, casting a dark cloud over T.B. Baker and his masterpiece. Extravagantly built, costing $1.2 million, which equates to around $18 million today, the finished hotel was beautiful.

450 rooms, health spas, a swimming pool, a ballroom, and a clock tower, were available to guests. But, the high cost and devastated economy took a toll on Baker’s finances.

The hotel declared bankruptcy in 1934, five years after the grand opening.

Mineral Wells | A Celebrity Hotel

Despite the financial difficulties, the hotel continued to thrive in popularity. Thanks to the spring water, well-to-do visitors wishing to revitalize their health kept coming. The hotel’s Cloud Room bar and lounge was the center of the city’s nightlife, where big bands played music into the wee hours of the morning.

Celebrities, Hollywood stars, and politicians all flocked to the Baker Hotel. Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Glenn Miller, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Three Stooges all frequented Mineral Wells. Outlaws Bonnie and Clyde even stayed a few nights while on the lam.

Decline and Decay

Haunted Pearl Inn Austin — Copyright US Ghost Adventures

The advent of modern medicine killed demand for the supposed healing properties of the artesian water in Mineral Wells. The city’s reputation as a health spa began to decline, as did bookings at the Baker Hotel.

Antibiotics and penicillin lead local doctors to prescribe medicine instead of a stay at the Baker Hotel or nearby health spa. The city’s economy enjoyed a moderate boost during World War II when Fort Wolters military base opened up nearby.

After the close of Fort Wolters in 1945, the Baker declined steadily. The 50s saw a few conventions from the Texas Republican Party. T.B. Baker’s son, Earl, had since taken over the hotel’s operations and announced its closure in 1963. A new management group attempted to continue running the hotel, but they couldn’t turn a profit. The Baker Hotel closed permanently in 1972.

The Baker Hotel now sits abandoned. The 14-story eyesore over Mineral Wells, Texas attracts graffiti artists, urban explorers, and ghost hunters from all over Texas. They trawl through the ruins of the hotel, unearthing its old-timey machinery, much of it remaining unchanged from the 30s and 40s.

In 1999, plans were made to renovate the Baker Hotel and restore it to its former glory, though renovation efforts didn’t begin until 2019.

The Mineral Wells Haunted Hotel

Ghosts have been seen roaming about the Baker Hotel even back when it was open. The earliest known ghost sightings were of the “Woman on the 7th Floor” during the 1950s and 60s.

According to a porter who worked there at the time, T.B. Baker had a mistress who stayed on the 7th floor. The affair had become too much for her to handle, so she committed suicide by jumping from her 7th story window.

Ever since, guests and staff have seen her ghost in and around the 7th floor. The mistress is one of the most active ghosts, and her striking red hair and piercing green eyes makes her unmistakable.

The ghost of T.D. Baker is also one of the commonly sighted spirits around the Baker Hotel.

He’s usually seen around his suite on the 11th floor, where its believed he died. Tour guides and those familiar with Baker’s ghost always knock on his door before entering.

People say the entire 11th floor smells like cigar smoke, just as it did when Baker lived there. He’s been known to steal from the guest’s pockets. Many later find their belongings in a pile in Baker’s suite.

Mystery of the Embalmed Body

The mistress wasn’t the only woman to jump from the top of the hotel. The “Mystery of the Embalmed Body” involves a woman who had gotten drunk during a party on the 12th-floor suite balcony.

In her inebriated state, she decided to pull a publicity stunt; she attempted to dive into the pool from the 12th floor. But, the move ended in tragedy.

Her dead body was found in the courtyard the next day. Since nobody knew who she was, the hotel had her embalmed, and displayed her body in one of the windows facing the main road to the hotel in hopes that someone would identify her body.

Ghost Maid — Copyright US Ghost Adventures

Ghosts of the Mineral Wells Hotel

“The Legend of the Bloody Kitchen” was one of the most brutal murders to take place in the town of Mineral Wells. A married cook in the Baker Hotel was having an affair with one of the maids.

One night, the two were having an argument in the kitchen when the maid threatened the cook with revealing the affair to his wife. The cook then grabbed a knife from the chopping block and stabbed the maid to death. He then stuffed her dead body into the kitchen pantry.

The ghost of a bellhop also roams the halls of the Baker Hotel. The bellboy was standing under a service elevator when it malfunctioned and crushed the lower half of his body.

The bellhop was sent to the hospital and died a few days later from his injuries. His ghost is often seen around the hotel, though witnesses only see the top half of his body. He’s said to be a friendly spirit and he is not alone.

A boy was sent to the hotel by his parents back when the Baker Hotel was a health spa in an effort to cure his leukemia. But he didn’t make it and died in his room.

His spirit is still seen by urban explorers and usually accompanied by a shaggy dog. Like the bellhop, he is quite friendly and is known to communicate with those who attempt to make contact.