Read My Lips - the blog

A Texas Ghost Story

Yesterday I went to the monthly luncheon of a ladies' club to which I belong. The woman across the table from me had taken a special tour of the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells over the weekend, a fund-raiser to assist with the renovation of the hotel which has been closed since 1970. This hotel was once a popular place.

Many celebrities visited or performed at the Baker

The Baker Hotel c. 1948
TE Postcard

, according to old hotel registers. The Baker hosted the Three Stooges, Clarke Gable, Judy Garland, Will Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, General Pershing, L.B.J., Jean Harlow, Sammy Kaye, Jack Dempsey, Sam Rayburn, Helen Keller, Ronald Reagan and Mary Martin, just to name a few.

My friend, who is the head of Career Services at the local university, told me that she and the coworker who accompanied her had both been skeptical concerning the ghost stories that they had heard about this deserted building. However, after taking the tour, they felt that some of what they had experienced could not be explained through mere logic. For instance, they took a photograph of a dark room; however, the resulting picture showed orbs of light. Even more frightening to them was the tape that they recorded in a room in which the two of them were the only occupants. The recording revealed moaning sounds which unnerved them so much that they immediately threw the tape away.