Baker Hotel

This 14-story hotel opened weeks after the 1929 stock market crash and somehow thrived, hosting Clark Gable, Lawrence Welk, and Roy Rogers. Legend has it Bonnie and Clyde stayed here and asked staff to remove the hallway carpet so they could hear police coming.

The Baker Hotel opened in 1929 in Mineral Wells--just weeks before the stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression. For decades, visitors had flocked to the town for the purported healing properties of its mineral-rich "Crazy Water." The magnificent 14-story hotel with 450 rooms attracted celebrities including Lawrence Welk, Clark Gable, and the Three Stooges. According to local lore, famed bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde once stayed here, having the carpet removed from their hallway so they could hear approaching law enforcement.

When advances in medicine made "taking the waters" obsolete, the hotel declined. It was shuttered in 1972, and nearly five decades of abandonment have not been kind to the structure--or kind to whatever souls remain trapped within.

T.B. Baker, the hotel's visionary founder, is believed to haunt the Baker Suite on the 11th floor, where he died. His ghost is most often detected by the acrid smell of cigar smoke--a brand that hasn't existed since the 1950s.

The most restless spirit is Virginia Brown, known as the Lady in White, Baker's mistress who haunts the seventh floor. Distraught over their affair, Virginia killed herself by jumping from her seventh-story window. Visitors often hear her high heels clicking against the lobby floor or detect her lavender perfume while exploring the upper floors.

The most disturbing ghost belongs to a teenage elevator operator from the summer of 1948. While engaging in horseplay with the manually controlled elevator in the basement, a slip caused his body to be cut in half--a tragedy documented in newspaper accounts. Investigators who have spotted this ghost in the basement see only his upper torso drifting across the floor.

Paranormal groups who've gained access report the thunderous sound of hotel room doors opening and closing throughout empty halls. Upon investigation, some are touched or shoved by unseen forces. A dark energy greets visitors immediately upon entry, leaving many feeling eerie or numb near the broken elevator.