BOB BAKER | Hood County Genealogical/Historical Society

From The Historical Encyclopedia of Texas – Published in 1934

Bob Baker, oil operator and authority in the fields of drilling and production, to which he has attained through some quarters of a century of continuous participation therein, joined the East Texas oil fraternity shortly after the field came in, and makes his headquarters near Overton. Here he is production superintendent for the Goodnight-Donald Oil Corporation, and has his field office on the Lum Tolliver lease in the Juan Ximines Survey, in the Overton district, where the companies have well organized development programs in full swing, under his able supervision.

Mr. Baker has been identified with oil activities since 1910, when he began his career drilling a wild cat well in Oklahoma. He has made steady progress, always in the production, or allied lease and royalty end of the business, and has drilled a number of wild cats during the course of his career both in Oklahoma and in Texas. He took an active part in the organization of the companies with which he is at present associated, and is a stockholder in both, being Vice-President of the Try-Way Oil Corporation.

Mr. Baker was born in Hood County, Texas, at Granbury, on the twelfth day of February, 1886, and is a son of Jesse Baker and Alice Baker, the father having engaged in the hardware and implement business there for many years, and likewise represented his district in the Texas State Legislature for four terms. Mr. Baker was reared in Granbury, and worked for his father in the hardware and implement business until his twenty-first year, when he entered the oil business.

Mr. Baker was married in 1908, to Miss Lillian Keithley, a daughter of Dr. Keithley of Dallas, she having passed away in 1931, leaving one child, a son, J.D. Baker. Mr. Baker was remarried on the fifteenth day of August, 1915, to Mrs. L.B. Clark, of Dallas. They reside on the Tolliver lease. Mr. Baker has made the oil business both vocation and avocation, and gives his entire time to the development of his interest therein, and has a wide range of knowledge embracing every phase of the business.