Baker Hotel - Postcard & Demolition Photo

[CTroyMathis]

Ran across these recently on the internet. Thought these were quite interesting. Had never seen a photo of the demolition of the 18st Baker Hotel and that entire block. Enjoy!

Black & White Postcard Image - Baker Hotel
http://www.soultones.com/postcards/dallas/baker.jpg

The block going down...
http://www.controlled-demolition.com/images/baker.jpg

[I45Tex]

If you look at the lists of early Dallas skyscrapers (are there such lists? I'm putting one together today), it's surprising - or at least, and more importantly, thought-provoking as to why it shouldn't have been surprising - how many of the prominent buildings were hotels. The Baker was built for T.B. Baker, who had owned hotels up north of Texas (Kansas for one location) before relocating to San Antonio and running St. Anthony Hotel and later the Menger. His Dallas hotel was built in 1925 concurrently with the construction nearby, at Main and North Harwood, of a hotel for Conrad Hilton of El Paso.
This Baker Hotel was related to the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, but not to the Baker Building in Downtown Fort Worth, unless T.B.'s heir and nephew Earl Baker, who closed the Mineral Wells hotel in 1963, was the same as the investor E.L. Baker, who bought the old 1st Natl Bank of FW building in 1965, gutted the Beaux Arts features and renamed it for himself.
Interesting story in the link below, not related to Dallas unless it increased Baker's fortune for the expansion here -

http://spiritofthebaker.com/tb_baker.htm

So far Google has not turned up what painting it was.

[sasquatch69]

On a related note, the Arlington Hotel and Spa in Hot Springs, Ark. was built by Baker and is nearly identical to the Baker in Mineral Wells, except that it is still open and fully operational:

http://www.arlingtonhotel.com/

http://image06.webshots.com/6/0/12/4/77101204Vnqqcv_ph.jpg

I know they've been posted here a while back, but jgrant's photographs of the Mineral Wells Baker in its current state are stellar:

http://nostalgicglass.org/display.php?pn=7

http://nostalgicglass.org/projects/p7/i1.jpg