Baker is a small desert town 95 miles southwest of Las Vegas at Exit 246 off Interstate 15 at the junction of SR 127, a.k.a. Death Valley Road. Baker, in fact, is at the south end of the Death Valley depression, though it’s at 930 feet above sea level.
It occupies 2.68 square miles of San Bernardino County. Baker Boulevard is the frontage road, with a dozen or so fast-food eateries, the Mad Greek restaurant (Greek food that’s actually not too bad), a few gas stations, a couple motels, and the World’s Tallest Thermometer. It’s a 134-foot-tall concrete pole painted like a thermometer with a broken digital display at the bottom; it hasn't worked since 2012. The specific height of the "thermometer" commemorates the hottest temperature ever recorded in the continental U.S.: 134 degrees in Death Valley in 1913.
According to 2010 Census figures, Baker had a population of 735 people, living in 215 households, with 168 families, average size 3.74, of which 122 had children under the age of 18. USA.com lists public-school enrollment at 102 students in Baker Elementary (grades 1-6), 30 in Baker Junior High school (grades 7-8), and 59 in Baker High (9-12).
If you look at a map of Baker, you’ll see a number of streets and roads north of Baker Boulevard and mostly east of Death Valley Road: Well, Sheridan, Roosevelt, Silver, Park, Stadium, Hillview, Van Ella, Lakeview, Pacific, etc. Presumably, most people who work in Baker live in homes in this residential area, with a population density, again according to the Census, of 112.7 housing units per square mile.
