PASSING THROUGH

Monday, Sept. 3, 2007 | 10 p.m.

BAKER, Calif. -- This dusty little town, 92 brutal highway miles from Las Vegas, exists for only one reason. It's the last stop on Interstate 15 before the Nevada line -- and all the vice that lies ahead.

It's famous for being the “Gateway to Death Valley,” having the world's tallest thermometer and not much else.

As Las Vegas has exploded in size, the 595 people who live in the 4 1/2-square-mile town have noticed relatively few changes in the day-to-day rhythms of their lives. Yet Baker undeniably is affected by its much bigger, distant neighbor to the northeast.

Baker remains, as it has always been, reliant on the travelers crossing the desert in need of gas, food or motor vehicle assistance.

On Fridays and Sundays the traffic can be seen for miles, crawling down the steep hills in the sweltering heat, much of it headed toward Las Vegas or Southern California. It averages 11,000 vehicles per day -- not exactly the 164,000 people who brave I-15 North into the Spaghetti Bowl daily.

But there isn't a gas station within 50 miles of Baker -- making the city a welcome sight indeed for motorists with pressing needs of both car and body.

“We are totally dependent on the highway,” says Le Hayes, manager of the community services district, the local government body with a $600,000 annual budget to pay for basic services. “A huge percent is Las Vegas. All we have to do is look.”

Look and you'll also see the vehicles parked on the shoulder of I-15, overheated, with flat tires or otherwise immobilized.

For this reason, Paul Mitchell, a burly 29-year-old with a thick beard and glasses, has one of the best gigs in town. He is one of the drivers for Ken's Towing, a longtime Baker business specializing in aiding stranded motorists.

Mitchell earns $9 an hour, 50 percent of labor costs and 33 percent of the $130-per-hour towing cost, which makes for some good paydays. In addition, his wife, Angi, makes $10 an hour at Starbucks. They celebrate on Sundays, his only day off, with trips across the state line to the $39-a-night rooms at Buffalo Bill's in Primm.

Often, Mitchell is the only Baker resident travelers meet on their way elsewhere.

Unless they stop and look around, they never see the dismal living conditions. Many residents are packed into trailers that have seen better days. Eighty-five percent work in the service industry, washing dishes, serving cheeseburgers or deep-frying frozen french fries.

“It's a nice little place,” Mitchell said about the town. “There's no fancy places. But there's Coco's, Denny's. Oh, and Bob's Big Boy. That's the newer one.”

Mitchell has a life that Vegas folks would either envy or fear. The big-city bustle has not touched him, except in his paycheck and maybe his wife's job shilling dark roast. And he greets Las Vegas with a suspicious eye, unless he needs to do some shopping or wants to see a film. Then he heads into the city.

“You think about going to Vegas, then you hear about all the crazy stuff, people killing each other,” he said, waiting for his next call. “We don't have that here.”

Mitchell lives in a 22-foot camper with a busted window that he shares with his wife and three young children. While there are negatives about the cramped quarters -- there is not enough room, for instance, for a large TV -- Mitchell will tell you there also are some big positives.

There's not much maintenance, he's close to work -- an advantage of living in your workplace's parking lot -- and $200 a month rent for the spot isn't much to pay considering a one-bedroom in Las Vegas would cost quadruple that or more. Plus, his yard is the Mojave Desert.

Over the years, he's towed Escalades, Mercedes‚ even a Rolls-Royce.

“Those are the ones that want to complain about the price,” Mitchell said. “The ones with the Ford Tauruses are like, ‘Eh, OK,'”

The talk around town, though, is not so much about money as it is housing -- more precisely, the lack of it. The town's 150 houses and roughly 40 apartments are quickly snatched up when one becomes available.

The housing shortage is one reason most teachers at the schools car pool from Las Vegas. The managers of Ken's do the same. It's about an hour commute if you treat the speed limit as a suggestion.

“People come out and they see that most people live in ratty old trailer parks,” Hayes said. “They don't want to live there and I don't blame them.”

Developers, though, aren't rushing to build homes in Baker, not when there are much bigger profits to be made in the Las Vegas Valley or Southern California.

“If we had housing here, I think people would come to get out of the Vegas rat race,” said resident Kelly Fisher, a local school board member who also is secretary of the Community Services District.

For now, the most contact residents have with outsiders is taking their food orders. And they are fine keeping it that way. The growth of fast-food restaurants has brought some people into town for work.

“A lot of people we don't know are coming into town,” said Josue Hernandez, 26, a clerk at the Alien Fresh Jerky Stand who grew up in Baker. “It's kind of scary. We don't know them. Three or four years ago you could leave your doors open. Now you can't do that.”

Like most others, Hernandez makes weekly trips to Las Vegas or Barstow, Calif., for his grocery shopping. Barstow is a slightly easier drive, most residents say. But in Henderson you can get groceries, stop at Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart, maybe have dinner at Green Valley Ranch and, of course, play the slots.

If you don't have three hours to make the trip, you can always call a neighbor.

“Once someone leaves town, you might be running errands for two or three people,” Fisher said.

“Normally I just take the St. Rose Parkway and hit the shops. I'd rather do that than when I drive from the (Las Vegas) airport to my sister's at 95 and Rancho. That Spaghetti Bowl you guys have is a nightmare.”

Still, it's a nightmare that sends people -- and dollars -- flowing through Baker.

“As long as Las Vegas is open for business,” Fisher said, “Baker will be open.”

Mike Trask can be reached at 259-8826 or at mike.trask@lasvegassun.com.