The Baker Hotel Ghost Walk

On By AngeliaIn Don't ever leave the house

First off, let me get this straight, I am NOT big on paranormal. In fact, it scares the stuffing out of me. I almost lost my cookies when we visited this Old Haunted Cavern over a year ago.

I DO watch Ghost Adventures, but only because my husband likes it Zak makes me laugh.

However, this was suggested as a great photo-op, and that is one thing I can’t resist – a great photo-op. Plus, it is this week’s Travel Theme: Spooky by the wonderful blogger Ailsa.

So, maybe I ventured outside of my comfort zone, and took off about an hour away to a place said to be haunted, on a night with a full moon, in a town nick-named for CRAZY water. It landed me on the steps of the biggest and creepiest hotel I have ever seen in my life.

The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas.

And let me just give credit to our tour guide Angela of The Baker Hotel Ghost Walk. She is the real deal. There are a few copy cats, but she is the one that put all the work into the research of the history and stories.

I’ll be honest with you. I took way too many photos for one post. I lost one whole battery (luckily I had two) in just a few hours (normally it takes 8-10 hrs per battery). I battled many other camera problems – mainly focus issues and a flash that would just up and DIE, off and on. I did not PHOTOSHOP any of these. They are straight out of the camera. I did add my watermark, but nothing else was altered.

The ghost walk starts on the front steps of The Baker Hotel. We get a run-down of its history, and its ghosts. At the back of the building, where we proceed, is a pole marked for a tipsy woman who jumped from the roof (trying to land in the pool). She didn’t make it. Angela advises this ghost likes to mess with men, and sometimes you can smell her lavender perfume. As soon as she said that, I smelled Lavender very strongly. So did several of the people with me. Coincidence? Maybe…

I took this shot of Jason (after the tour). Looks to me like something is by him coming off the pole back left of the photo. He says it is some “tree” or something. Although, it was not in ANY of the other photos I took of him in the same spot.

The other part of the tour was down a few blocks (we covered 10 blocks). The guide advised some people get sick in this area, because a lot of children were abused and died at this house. It was the home and business of a Doctor, and an orphanage for children of parents who could no longer afford to keep them during the depression era. I DID feel sick. Both times when I walked by there. Coincidence? Maybe…

Our minds are a powerful thing. Apparently, so is the paranormal.

Regardless, this place is spooky with a capital S. Solely for the upside down crosses, and because the owner of the property still lives on the third floor. Photo above is the second floor. The first and second floors have no electricity and he is known not to be right in the head (too much Crazy water?).

My daughter had fun messing with me on the tour.

We explored on our own for more than an hour after the tour ended. That is when I got most of the photos that show “something”. All of them at, or around The Baker Hotel.

If anyone can explain these photos, I’d like to hear it. Look for the mists and the orbs. My husband had the other camera and he didn’t get anything taking the same pictures. And his battery never drained either.

This is me across from the pool. Taking a photo of the hotel. See next pic.

This is the photo I took. I must admit. It freaked me out a little. It was not raining. No fog. My lens was not dirty. I don’t think simple street lights could make those orbs. It was a clear night. See collage at the top where I took a photo of the moon. They say, The Ghost Adventure guys stayed here in September. They named it one of the most haunted places they have been to. Could that be true?

It sure looks that way to me.

Oddly enough, I didn’t get scared. I felt uneasy a few times, but mostly calm. The only time I really freaked was when we heard noises from the window we had just peered through on the Mezzanine level.

This is the Mezzanine area we were at.

This is the area where the window was. I SWORE I got a photo of that window, but I couldn’t find it on my camera. Coincidence? Maybe….

Inside where we looked.

We heard a loud chang above us. ALL of us heard it. Then, within minutes, a ching, and a crack right by the window we had just peered through. My heart did a flip-flop! Jason says it was not a ghost, but trespassers inside the hotel. But really? That is hard for me to believe. For one thing, it’s a $500.00 fine and there are cops driving around every few minutes. For two, why didn’t we hear them walking around, or see them with flashlights? Go back and look at the photo above and imagine walking through that area in complete darkness. Could you navigate that room without making a peep? Without flashlights on? In the pitch-black? Wouldn’t we have heard them talking, shuffling, or banging their way around?

Jason is a non-believer.

I, however, am NOT. But strangely, I’m not as frightened as I thought I would be.

Even when I stood outside The Baker – by myself (being by yourself is a WHOLE different experience). I felt sick again, and I felt pressure on my sinuses; a sign of energy in the air. I pretty much made a mad dash to find the others. At the time, I was under a window where many have seen a mistress looking out. Coincidence? Maybe…..

So…that is my story. And These are my photos.

Haunted or not…this is one fascinating building with a rich history about it, and around the entire downtown.

I plan to go back sometime soon. In the daylight preferably…..

Do you believe in the paranormal?

145 thoughts on “The Baker Hotel Ghost Walk”

  1. That is so amazing! How totally cool!
    We have a banger in our house. There is no logical explanation why the ceiling, then the dressers, then the bed frame and then the TV get tapped. He has been around for a while now….we call him Jeff.. Muahahaha! Happy Halloween!

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          1. It was definitely a ghost. There is no way that the dressers, head board, and the front of the TV could bang in my house. I think they stop when they move to another person or place to haunt or finally find the light. I think I will blog about my experience next week….

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      1. vastlycurious.com

        I would really like to believe in ghost and I used to however when my brother died , his personality filled an entire room- he never came to see me so I stopped completely..I would love some proof of an afterlife 🙂

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  3. This whole place was totally creepy and I’d definitely do it again! The stories that Angela, the ghost walk guide, told made it so much better. I tried provoking the spirits like Zak does — guess it only works if you’re wearing Ed Hardy. 🙂

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    1. Ha ha! I thought you did a great job! I got an apparition by your head when you talked to the Lavender Lady. And we all heard quite a few sounds after you were talking to the room we looked into. What a place, huh? I don’t think I would stay the night. Uhhhh, ever!

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    1. My daughter had a ghost app on her phone that said words. We were by a boarded up door and written on the plywood were the words TOP’s GYM. When my daughter read the words outloud, the app immediately responded weights. That was pretty wild!

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  8. suzicate

    You brave, brave girl! I’m not so much into the paranormal either though my sister is…she used to make me watch all those horrid scary movies so I blame it all on her, lol!

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  9. I do believe in the paranormal and I love haunted houses. I’m not sure why because they can scare me to no end! I have some photos from our time in Mexico that show some interesting orbs in them. Thanks for a great post Angelia. 🙂

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    1. I read a review by a psychic that went into the hotel about 10yrs ago. She said a lot of the “spirits” didn’t die there, but returned to the hotel, because they had such fond memories of their times there. I found it very intriguing.

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  10. Very cool post. I wasn’t a real believer until I had a few brushes with some really weirdness. I happen to think those little dots that look like rain may be something other worldly. Just sayin!

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  11. Oh, Angelia, you are a brave woman! You know I’m a Ghost Adventures fan, so I must say that I’m quite sure Zak would be very proud of you. 😉 Seriously, UH-HUH, those look like orbs to me! I don’t think I’d have the nerve to visit that place – and I definitely wouldn’t set off on my own around the hotel. I commend you on your fearless “spirit” and great photos. Not to freak you out, but you know Zak would say the spirits were draining your camera battery and wreaking havoc with your flash – mwaaahaaahaaahaaa and wink, wink. Loved this post! So spooky and fun!

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    1. I purposely charged BOTH batteries right before we left. Normally, one battery lasts 10 hours or more. I don’t think I have ever drained a battery, not even when I did weddings and took 800 photos. One whole battery drained, and a quarter of the second one. The flash wigged out too. The light screen would come on randomly, and normally it only comes on when I push the shutter button. Plus the photos I took by Jason, we were told on the tour that many people get photos of apparitions in that particular area around men. I walked all around him shooting photos and SAW NOTHING. Then, when we uploaded the pics, I showed Sydney and said, “Um, WHAT is THAT?” Yeah. Zak would be proud. They filmed there last month. I can’t wait to see the episode.

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      1. That is SO spooky! And there is definitely something in the photo with Jason. Eek! My husband thinks I need to take a break from watching GA because, when I captured that orb from my post, he was simultaneously leaving the room because he felt sick to his stomach. He was nauseous for about 15 minutes. Well, GA fans know what THAT means! AA Hubby thinks I’m insane even suggesting it. (But it’s fun to imagine that was the problem – hee hee.) I can’t wait to see that episode after your post!

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    1. I didn’t want to go. All day, I kept thinking….I am scared of ghosts…..why am I doing this to myself? But you know the saying….Do something that scares you every day. Okay, so maybe that is not what they meant, but I did. Haha.

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    1. They seemed fairly happy here. This was a majestic hotel in its day in which many celebs flocked to. Later, it was a place in which sick people came for healing when they discovered the waters cured illnesses. The town was renamed Mineral Wells after the three famous “healing water” wells. Fascinating history.

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  20. You are one brave woman. I’m a big scaredy cat and don’t think I would have been able to complete the tour without scaring myself silly. And no way I could have taken photos! Great photos – they really brought out the flavour of the place.

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    1. I must admit a few times. I would see something dart by when I looked through the lens of the camera. But when I looked with my eye, nothing was there. It was VERY weird. Honestly, though, it wasn’t SUPER scary (with other people that is).

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  22. Eeeek! Looks legit proofs. Yeah, but I’m like Jason who is non-believer of paranormal. What you showed her can turn me 360 degrees though, but I have to experience it myself. The best one is Jason’s stalker… really creepy.
    Kudos to you going through this all. My girl won’t probably even make it on the first step of the stairs.
    AWESOME POST!

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  23. JackieP

    Oh wow! Does this bring back memories! My ex and I lived in Mineral Wells years ago and I remember this hotel so very well. I believe it is haunted. Because some things one just can’t explain. Great post and great photos!

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    1. You did? Wow. I bet it does. I have some friends that stayed the night there over a decade ago. They said it was VERY scary. They closed the post office and The Crazy Water hotel as well. All are empty in downtown. Or condemned I should say….

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        1. Yes, it’s condemned due to some water damage on the upper floors and no one is allowed in. The Ghost Adventure guys got to set up and stay the night last month (everyone was shocked). There is a rumor they may open it back up for tours. It’s been closed off since 2003. 🙂

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  26. They say ghosts absorb energy from electronics so they can do their thing. Maybe that’s why your camera nearly ran out of batteries. Also, the thing in the photo of your husband that he says looks like a tree? It might be a face. There’s also a shadow at the bottom of the photo. It’s just a bump, but it’s a shadow.
    And yes, I do believe in ghosts. I saw one not too long ago…
    Happy Halloween.

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    1. I was haunted about 6 years ago. FOR REAL. My alarm would go off every night at 3am. EVERY NIGHT. I even unplugged it, but it still went off. I wrote about it here. And yes, the Baker Hotel ghosts used my juice. My camera’s battery back holds two batteries and the pack extends from the bottom of the camera. I think it allowed easier access. 😉

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  28. Creeeeepy! I’m a big baby when it comes to that stuff too but I forced myself to take the tours in Edinburgh, one of which one of Europe’s most haunted sites. Thankfully no ‘activity’ or weirdness in my pics!

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      1. haha yeah I was in a group- only way we could get into the masoleum, which is locked because of ‘the dangerous poltergeist”. Not that I would want to go back alone!! You are braver than me!

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  32. I’m not sure if I completely believe in the paranormal. The rational part of my brain seems to search for explanations, but somewhere deep down I want to believe that the strange things I experience are something different. I don’t know; maybe because it’s Halloween, but I’d really like to take some friends and a camera and go to a place like this.

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  33. Terii

    Thank you for sharing this!

    I’m a believer in ghosts. A large part of that is due to something that happened while sleeping over at a friend’s house. I woke to the sound of the front door opening, but when I lifted my head, it was still closed. The room was dark except for the light of the TV screen with the station gone off the air. The clumping of a man’s heavy boots stomped through the living room and past the foot of the hide-a-bed where a shadow fell across the blankets when the sounds passed the front of the TV. With what felt like every hair on my body standing on end, I woke my friend. She didn’t even open her eyes, just told me sleepily that it was her grandfather who’d been dead for some 15 years.

    I’ve seen and heard other strange things to reinforce that first encounter with the paranormal, but that was by far the strongest.

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  35. This is a great post – I am very torn between whether to believe or not, although I am slightly more in the “I believe” camp… I’m pretty sure that my sister and I saw “something” living on the stairs in a house we lived in when we were much younger.
    I’m way too far from texas to try make it out there but doing something like this is high on my list – even if only to help me decide which side of the fence I *really* am on!
    Your photos do the eeriness great justice – well done!

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  37. Congrats on being freshly pressed! I grew up in Mineral Wells, and once swam in the pool outside the Baker. I never knew they had “Ghost Walk” tours. I must try that sometime when I’m back in town.

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    1. Wow! How cool is that?!? It is a neat town, albeit a little strange. I don’t when they started the ghost walks, or how long they go on. You can always check the Facebook page I linked. They say the pool was one of the first in-ground pools outside for a hotel. It was a big deal back in the day it was built. 🙂

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  39. Yeah there is definitely activity there. I got some photos of a home in York England that is used for ghost tours. One particular room that we were in I took a few photos of. There was orbs in all of them but never in the same place. Beyond my photos we never saw anything else but I always believed there is something more out there. Some fake it but there times when it’s true.

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  41. Great blog post! Congratulations on getting Freshly Pressed, it’s a real thrill, I know. And thanks for reminding me that I’ve still to post about my tour of the Eureka Springs hotel two years ago! 😀

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  42. Fun article. 🙂 I believe in the paranormal, but not like many others do. I understand these “spirits” to be of a demonic nature, rather than human souls doomed to relive their last moments on earth for eternity. Scripture teaches us that to be apart from the body is to be in the presence of God (2 Corinthians 5:6-8), so living by this truth I can’t believe in “ghosts” as traditionally defined. I also know that demons posses and oppress, thus explaining why some people are more evil than others, and also explaining why certain inanimate objects (a.k.a. houses/hotels/buildings, etc.) are deemed “haunted.” Demons, for what ever reason, have taken up residence there; thanks for posting. 🙂

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    1. See, I was told that too. All spirits are demons. But, I discovered I find that hard to believe. I, especially, find it hard to believe that demons just knock around an old building for fun. Seems to me demons get a lot more joy in being present in the lives of PEOPLE. They whisper to them and suggest they do things that go against their better judgement. They guide them – mostly using the Bible to be cruel, harsh, and mean to others not like them. Angels are spirits too. Present in our lives. Mary was SUPERNATURALLY impregnated with Jesus. Many parts of the Bible are supernatural. And God made us out of energy, same as the earth. The very energy that knocks around in old buildings. Is there bad energy? Yes. Same as there are bad people. Good energy? Sure. Psychics were burned at the stake considered to be witches because they “sense” this energy, more than others do. Were they all witches? No. I understand why you believe what you do, but I don’t think a demon visited my mother in the hospital the day after I was born to tell her how beautiful of a baby I was. I don’t think this demon took on the form of my Grandmother (for what reason?) to give my mom a little peace that her dead mother saw her child she carried when she died. Even if all our souls go to heaven or hell, maybe some energy is displaced here and there. All I am saying is that I have sensed evil inside someone alive, more than inside an old building.
      Thanks for the comment!

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      1. Demons have many functions, I can’t begin to go into this vast subject on such a constricting forum as this response field, but I can say that demons are a destructive and distracting force. They will posses and oppress anything and anybody in order to take our focus away from God; and certainly, Demons would not be about doing anything truly good. I’m certain God moved in those instances of positive supernatural phenomena that you and your family experienced. Be that through an Angel or family member given permission for a moment to interact with you all. All things happen for a purpose, whether spiritually or physically good or bad. We have the struggle of discerning this from a limited physical point of view, for now, but God did give us His hope and truth to help us along. 🙂

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  45. aschmid3

    Zak will be cussing up a storm in the Baker Hotel episode if they got half the evidence you did! (I love “Ghost Adventures” too, half for the ghosts and half for Zak’s reactions.) I truly believe in the paranormal, but sometimes I wonder if that’s just because I WANT it to be true.

    Great pics, and great story!

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    1. Interesting concept on the truth part. I’m not sure I believe we can intelligently communicate with these spirits, apparitions, or orbs. But I do think something is there and it is not ALL evil or anything. Maybe one day, we will know more about that. I can’t WAIT for the episode to air. 🙂

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  46. I’m studying Buddhism right now and even before I did, I believed in spirits and souls. I consider myself an agnostic but have had a couple experiences (too personal to include her, nothing anyone else would probably consider spectacular, though). When we were buying our house and finally found one we fell totally in love with, if they’d disclosed someone had killed themselves in it or there had been a homicide, we still would have bought it, but no matter how stupid my husband thought the idea was, I would have found and hired someone to cleanse the house and say/perform some kind of a blessing. I do believe in negative and positive energy, but that’s not necessarily connected to ghosts. So I guess that’s the extent of my beliefs. Anyway, I don’t watch any paranormal reality shows, but I see a lot of Asian horror movies, and the one of your husband is genuinely unsettling – I saw what my mind immediately decided was a pale face peeking out from behind those poles. When I look for more than a couple seconds, I see the suggestion of eyes and hair. EEK. One of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen is Shutter, from Thailand, so that’s probably what I’m reading into the photo. All the photos are creepy! It’d probably take me two Xanax to get me through a tour that place alone and after dark. Great photos and great post!

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    1. I can’t do Asian horror. I caught part of The Grudge once and had nightmares for weeks. Ahhh! Buddhism has some interesting theories, as do many religions. I find life extraordinary. And our different views, choices, and functions fascinate me even more. We are all made so unique. It is something to embrace. I believe in Jesus and believe he did that in his time. I don’t want to be blinded by faith so I keep my eyes open. 🙂

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  48. I believe what is ‘ghaib’, and satan is something we can’t see and taste it, but it exist as angel. In our holy book, Qur’an we can read it. If we can see it that is ‘ghost, ….

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  49. Wow! Not that creepy..but beautiful..
    (yup. you can call me a creepy sack , I love creepy things 😀 LOL)
    And your question…ammm….well…I dont know, but would not prefer to know even.. hah!
    Who wants to mess up if they really exist?! Holy crap!!! 😦
    Not me…

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  50. I did a ghost walking tour in Edinburgh, Scotland when I was studying abroad in Europe. We went into one of these underground vaults where they used to store food and later became a slum. Then the vaults were built over and people forgot about them, until they were later rediscovered sometime in the 20th century. I didn’t actually experience anything but I was scared out of my mind the entire time. You’re in the dark, underground, and off the main hallway of the vault you have all these different rooms. I was clutching my friend’s arm the entire time and I told her she wasn’t allowed to take pictures, I didn’t want to see any creepy things in the pictures hahaha. There was this one room our tour guide told us we weren’t allowed to go in because the spirit was “violent” and had thrown someone to the floor, requiring that visitor to get stitches. After that, they stopped taking people in that room. Another room had some weird kind of circle of rocks in which it was said some weird entity stood in it and would scratch people and bring people bad luck.

    Safe to say, none of us chose to walk into that room or walk into the circle of rocks. I was taking a plane the next day and did not see the need to tempt fate!

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