T. B. Baker was born on July 11, 1875 in Washington, Iowa to William Abner Baker and Luranah Grayson Baker. He was the youngest of seven children. His father was listed as being a farmer in most of the federal census reports and they resided in Kansas. T. B. was a single man of 25 in the 1900 census and was living with his parents in Eureka, Kansas, managing a hotel.
T. B. married the former Mabel “Mae” Crawley in 1902 in Miami, Oklahoma, her home town. A brief newspaper article noted that it was a small wedding at the home of the bride’s sister Lucy. Thereafter, T. B. and his wife were running the Greenwood Hotel in Eureka, Kansas. In October of that year, he was named manager of the Kingfisher Hotel in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The local newspaper posted an article when his appointment was announced, adding that the hotel was in the process of being renovated and remodeled. In 1905 the couple had a daughter, Mary Louise, who died in Kansas two and a half years later of unknown causes. She was their only child.
The couple had relocated to San Antonio by about 1917. After a few years, Baker began to manage hotels for his own account. He owned and operated three properties in San Antonio. The St. Anthony Hotel on Travis Avenue was his first. It was built in 1909 by two cattlemen. The famous Menger Hotel on Alamo Plaza is said to be the oldest continuously operating hotel west of the Mississippi River and was completed in 1859 by German-born businessman William Menger. Located adjacent to the Alamo, it has been a popular and historic destination for more than 170 years. Also in San Antonio is the Gunter Hotel on St. Mary’s Street. It too was completed in 1909. Baker is believed to have owned each of the three hotels at least for a few years. All three of these hotels are still standing and in operation today.
Baker later built two hotels that were named for him. The first was in downtown Dallas and the second was in Mineral Wells. The hotel in Dallas was at the corner of Commerce and Akard streets. It replaced the Oriental Hotel which had been at that location since the early 1890s. Baker bought the property and the former structure was demolished in 1924 and construction of the new hotel began later that year. The features of the Baker Hotel were as follows: 18 floors, 700 rooms, a convention hall that could accommodate 1,700 people, a roof garden that could seat 2,100. For some time, it and other properties had been managed by other family members including a brother, William Rodem Baker and a nephew, Fenton J. Baker, who said that he grew up at the Dallas Baker. It was a popular location for downtown visitors, weddings, conventions and other gatherings. Radio station WFAA once had its broadcast studio there and future president Richard M. Nixon stayed there in 1963. The hotel operated for about 50 years at that location until it was acquired by a utility company which was blocking up properties for a headquarters building. It stood until June of 1980 when it was demolished.
A newspaper article on February 28, 1934 referenced a bankruptcy proceeding against the hotel company in connection with a lien held by a trustee in Chicago, Illinois. It was to have forced a sale of the Dallas hotel. In January, 1935 a newspaper article was published about a proposed plan of reorganization of the company. Further details are not available, but a reorganization plan appears to have been accepted by the court. The Dallas hotel appears to have remained in the hands of the hotel company until it was sold many years later.
The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells opened in December 1929. The town was known for its mineral springs that flowed with water that supposedly had healing properties for drinking and bathing. An one time, there were an estimated 400 operating mineral wells in town. An earlier hotel not connected to Baker was called the Crazy Water Hotel which had 200 rooms. It suffered a fire in 1925 but reopened a couple of years later. Baker decided that the town could use another hotel and conceived a much larger structure than the Crazy Water property. His 14 story, 450 room hotel was an instant landmark and became a popular getaway destination for visitors from larger towns such as Dallas and Fort Worth. Local businesses served the water by the glass or cup. The hotel and other businesses evaporated the liquid and sold canisters of the remaining salty crystals so that people could mix it with their own tap water.
The property attracted well known entertainment acts and boasted a rooftop venue that accommodated hundreds of customers and smaller penthouse. Some of the celebrities and entertainers who stayed there include the Three Stooges, Lawrence Welk, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Dorsey Brothers, Lyndon B. Johnson, Roy Rogers and others. There was an Olympic sized outdoor pool filled with the spring-fed water.
The timing was somewhat problematic, since the opening followed only weeks after the devastating stock market crash which ushered in the Great Depression. Despite the horrendous national effects of the Depression, this hotel remained continuously open, surviving the Depression and operating until 1963. It finally closed for a number of reasons including the elimination of a local military base, increased competition, advances in medicine, government regulations concerning products’ claims of health benefits and declining production of the natural springs and mineral wells. Two years after it ceased operations, the Mineral Wells property was sold. Other than the two properties bearing the Baker name, it is unclear how or when the company owned hotels were disposed of.
In the twenty years since 1965, the Mineral Wells property has been the subject of several renovation plans but none of them have been completed. A new project was announced in the spring of 2026 with a target of reopening in 2028.
For a time, Baker leased the Galvez Hotel in Galveston, the Edson Hotel in Beaumont and the Stephen F. Austin Hotel in Austin. All three structures are still standing. Both the Galvez and Stephen F. Austin properties are operating hotels while the Edson is now owned by a utility company and serves as an office building. In the mid 1930s, T. B. was owner and managing director of the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, at one time billed to be the city’s largest hotel. In 1935, a newspaper advertisement quoted the room rates to be $2.00 for a single room and $3.00 for a double room. The Texas Hotel is where President and Mrs. Kennedy stayed in 1963.
T. B. retired in 1952. In 1935 as part of a bankruptcy settlement, he had turned the management of the hotel company over to a nephew, Fenton J. Baker of Dallas, who succeeded him as President of the company. Mae Crawley Baker died in 1963 at the age of 86. T. B. Baker died in 1972 in San Antonio at the age of 96. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are buried in Kansas.
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