CHAPTER 17

Our Sons in Name and Fame

NOTE: Some information for this chapter was secured through questionnaires. Several recipients did not reply, thus certain omissions will be noted. We want to thank those who so kindly replied to our request for information.

Judge Baker was a friendly, neighborly man who could quote Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries one minute, and tell a side-splitting yarn the next. He never argued in anything but a kindly tone, and never spoke ill of anyone.

The judge's father, Joseph G. Baker, was born in the parish of Meare, Somersetshire, England, on April 12, 1849, the eldest of eight children. He was three times the state president and in 1910 and 1911 the national president of the National Federation of Retail Implement Vehicle Dealers. He was an organizer and the vice- president of the Woodford County National Bank, and served as mayor of El Paso, as did his son, the only father and son to serve as the city's chief executive.

Horace H. Baker was born in Buckley, Illinois, April 14, 1884, and with his parents came to El Paso in 1885. He was graduated from the Jefferson Park High School in 1901 and completed two years at Morgan Park Military Academy. He then entered the University of Michigan and received his L. L. B. degree in 1906. He then entered the law practice at El Paso and on November 25, 1909 he married Glenna M. Bonar.

Judge Baker was the first circuit judge to be elected from Woodford County in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, composed of Logan, McLean, Woodford, Livingston and Ford counties at that time, and he served in this office from 1936 to 1939. He had previously served as the state’s attorney of Woodford County from 1932 to 1936.

On April 18, 1911, Mr. Baker was elected mayor of El Paso and served three consecutive two-year terms. At the time of his election he was twenty-six years and four days of age, the youngest man ever elected mayor of El Paso. Following his municipal service, he was elected president of the El Paso Township High School board and served for ten years, from 1919 to 1929. He served as director of the First National Bank, now the El Paso National, for twenty-seven years, and with his son, Frederick Bonar Baker formed the law firm of Baker & Baker until his death on March 2, 1947. The Judge served

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