The Baker project is the capstone in revitalization efforts that Mr. Nix began spearheading several years ago. Without a vibrant downtown, he said, any effort to reopen the Baker was likely to face the same fate as past unsuccessful attempts to bring the hotel back to life.

“All of these years, we in this community have been sitting here waiting for somebody like Laird to come along and build the Baker, thinking it’s going to save this town, and I say it’s not going to happen that way,” Mr. Nix said. “Until this community steps in and does something about itself and starts bring ing in tourism, the Baker Hotel will never be a viable project.”

One of Nix’s key undertakings is focused on the Crazy Water Hotel , which opened in 1912, burned to the ground and then reopened in 1927, two years before the Baker. Like other things in Mineral Wells, it bears the nickname of the recuperative waters that supposedly helped cure a woman in serious mental distress.

Mr. Nix, owner of Nix Rental Homes, was among 10 local business leaders who put up $200,000 apiece to form a public benefit corporation to convert the seven-story Crazy Water Hotel into upscale apartments that can also be used for short-term rentals when tourism begins to take off. He said the project exemplified the community’s renewed commitment to revitalizing Mineral Wells, saying he expects 150 investors to be on board when the hotel fully reopens in December 2020.