Founding director of the Tarleton museum and research facility, Baker will discuss his newest book, Portrait of Route 66: Images from the Curt Teich Postcard Archives (Oklahoma Press, 2016) at 2 p.m.
A come-and-go reception follows the free program and book signing. Copies of Portrait of Route 66 and other works by Baker will be for sale in the museum’s gift shop.
Portrait of Route 66 received the Ray & Pat Brown Award for the “Best Reference/Primary Source Work” in popular culture published in 2016. The book features unknown photographs and postcards showing the old Highway 66 roadside between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Widely recognized as an authority on Texas history, Baker was instrumental in helping establish the W.K. Gordon Center in the ghost town of Thurber—just off Interstate 20 between Fort Worth and Abilene. Holder of the oldest endowed chair in Texas history, the W.K. Gordon Chair, he is the author of 21 books on Texas and the American West and the most published author at Texas A&M University Press.
A former Fulbright Lecturer in Europe, Baker joined Tarleton’s Department of Social Sciences in 2002, and is known for his two-minute, weekly radio program—T for Texas—on KTRL 90.5 and KXTR 100.7. He is a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, founding director of the Texas Heritage Museum at Hill College and recipient of the Glenda Morgan Award for Museum Excellence from the Texas Historical Commission.
