Roland Gail Baker Papers

A native Arizonan, Roland Gail Baker was born in Phoenix on October 11, 1897. He was the son of Roland Claudius Baker and Lilly Mae Cromb. Between 1919 and 1922 Baker received degrees from the University of Arizona and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1933 he married Barbara Allen Clayton and they had four children.

Baker served in the U.S. Army in 1918 in Tucson. In 1919 he worked for the Pinal County Highway Department as a draftsman and computer. He was draftsman and office engineer for the Santa Cruz County Highway Department in 1920. From 1921 to 1934 he was with the Salt River Valley Water Users Association in several engineering capacities. As design engineer he had direct charge of the design and construction of several Arizona dams, power plants, canals and bridges.

From 1934 to 1935 Baker was Chief Engineer with the Verde Irrigation and Power District. He then went into private business in 1935. From 1936 to 1940 he was in the private sector and served as a consultant to a number of local firms. From 1940 to 1943, Baker was engineer and superintendent of the Water Department, City of Phoenix and in 1944 served as a consultant for the State of Arizona working with the Bureau of Reclamation and making extensive studies of the Colorado River below Lee Ferry. From 1946 to the mid 1950s Baker was Phoenix City Engineer and Chief Engineer for the Arizona Interstate Stream Commission. He resigned his state and municipal appointments due to ill heath and continued in his own engineering firm.

For his outstanding engineering contributions to the State of Arizona, Baker was awarded the Honor Medallion from the College of Engineering, University of Arizona in 1960. R. Gail Baker died in Phoenix on January 4, 1965.