The community of Baker, between Pollok and Clawson, was a stop on the Cotton Belt from the 1880s to the early 1900s. Archie Birdsong Matthews, in his thesis, noted that the Baker sawmill operated before 1900, cutting only several thousand feet of lumber daily. It must have closed by 1900 or 1901, for the post office closed the later year. l The sawmill of Union Mills was installed there sometime later. American Lumberman in May 1906 reported that Union Mills had installed its planing mill and was running full time.
This possibly be the Walter Chapman mill referred to here. Walter Chapman of Chapman's Mill at Bakers was reported by (Nacogdoches) The Weekly Sentinel on August 8, 1900, to have been seriously injured while trying to gum a saw on a 10-inch emory wheel. The emory wheel burst.