Yesterday, I had the chance to assist Matt Hawthorne on a shoot at the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells for ON magazine. The Baker Hotel was opened in 1929 and closed in 1972. People like JFK, Judy Garland, Clark Gable and many others stayed at the Baker. A woman named Jayne Catrett was the care taker of the Baker for about two decades. Jayne would do tours and let people do weddings, but eventually the city told her she could no longer be the care taker and the hotel was no longer open to the public. Other than the occasional break-ins, the Hotel has rarely been photographed or filmed. This place was crazy! The guy who first showed us around said that the Baker Hotel is said to be the most haunted place in Texas. The only lights in the entire place was the natural light coming in from outside. As we walked down the empty hallways there was no way of telling what you would see. One room could only have the paint on the walls and others a couch, bed, and tv. The craziest thing that happened was that me and Taylor ( another assistant) got stuck on a floor in the middle of the hotel. Neither one of us could find the staircase that would get us off the floor. After walking up and down the hall about seven times we noticed a raccoon that died leaving a room and then three doors down on the other side of the hall there was an empty room with a pool of blood in the middle about the size of a garbage lid. ( room still had flies). Anyway, this place was amazing and I was thankful to be involved. Oh, and the fashion shoot that was shot looked pretty sick as well.
Here is a video that I found on youtube that a few guys who broke in shot. This will give you a decent idea of what it looked like. Though it was in worse condition when we were there.
These are some photos I found online of how the hotel originally looked.
These are some photos I shot while we were at the hotel yesterday!
That is so disturbing and amazing at the same time. I love this.
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