Editing Baker, Montana (section)

==History==
Baker was built along the [[Transcontinental railroad|transcontinental rail line]] of the [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad|Milwaukee Road]] near where the railroad created a lake to supply water to its [[steam locomotive]]s. The city was known as Lorraine for a brief time before being renamed in honor of Milwaukee Road engineer A.G. Baker.<ref name="names">{{cite book|last1=Carkeek Cheney|first1=Roberta|title=Names on the Face of Montana|date=1983|publisher=Mountain Press Publishing Company|location=Missoula, Montana|isbn=0-87842-150-5|page=5}}</ref> A successful [[Milwaukee Land Company]] campaign to attract homesteaders to the area allowed the city to grow and serve a large community of [[Dryland farming|dryland farmers]]. Additional growth occurred following the 1912 discovery of [[Petroleum|oil]] and natural gas deposits nearby.<ref name="MT Place Names">{{cite web|title=Montana Place Names Companion|url=http://mtplacenames.org/|work=Montana Place Names From Alzada to Zortman|publisher=Montana Historical Society Research Center|access-date=May 9, 2011}}</ref>

In 2014, Baker was described as "a busy, noisy, traffic-jammed, bursting-at-the-seams boomtown on the edge of the oil fields."<ref>{{Cite news
| last = Wilson
| first = Kurt
| title = Roadside wanderings: Wild West spirit, solitude still rule southeast Montana
| work = Missoulian
| access-date = 2014-11-02
| date = 2014-07-16
| url = http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/roadside-wanderings-wild-west-spirit-solitude-still-rule-southeast-montana/article_62ae9eb8-093f-11e4-bd08-001a4bcf887a.html
}}</ref> On June 11, 2016, an EF-3 Tornado struck Baker destroying several houses and damaging dozens more, killing multiple horses in the area and injuring six people.