WLM | people
SPEAKING OF
O
nce upon a time a little boy named Wayne
Baker, along with a few other children, were
told by one of their teachers that they “weren’t
worth wasting her time on” -- so she didn’t. When
Wayne reached high school, he was in an automobile
accident that kept him out of school for a period of time.
When he learned that he would have to take that grade
over he chose not to.
Wayne went to California where he knew there was
plenty of work and stayed with one of his brothers with
the intention of earning some money and then coming
back to finish school. He arrived in Oakland, California
one day before Pearl Harbor was bombed. Wayne
then went to work for Western Union for a short time
and then found work at a shipyard where he gained
priceless knowledge in cutting and welding. When
his draft number came up, he began basic training in
Fresno for the Air Force. After the service, Wayne put
his skills to work creating bridges.
I asked Wayne how he happened to get into bridge
building. His reply was simple -- because someone
needed a bridge! He said, “I figure out what it takes
to do each job, then I do it. If someone has a need, you
take care of it.” Wayne designs everything he builds. He
has also built 40-50 cattle guards and many gates.
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Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Summer 2019
Wayne built his first bridge in Wellington, Utah in 1958
when he was in his early thirties. It was for the city,
was 40-50 feet long and crossed the Price River. He has
since built over a hundred bridges. One of them was in
Colorado, north of Grand Junction. The power plant
was on one side and the coal on the other. “They had to
go a long way around to get the coal. I built a bridge so
they could go right across to the power plant. It was a
110 foot bridge with seven foot beams,” Wayne explains.
He built a bridge in the tiny town of Hailstone, Utah
in 1963. It was done in two sections to get it up the
winding road out of Price, Utah. They had to lay on
their backs in the river welding to splice it together.
While doing that, they stopped for lunch and walked to
a nearby café. Upon entering, the TV was announcing
that President Kennedy had just been shot!
By 1968, he and Art Linkletter (of “Kids Say the
Darndest Things” fame) were partners in a coal mine
in Price, Utah. The mine flourished and produced ten
times the national average per man shift at that time.
After they sold the mine, Wayne and his wife, Mariam,
moved back to Freedom, Wyoming. There, along with
Dick and Jeri Casull (of .454 Casull fame), Wayne
established a gun manufacturing company. Dick Casull
recently passed away, but Wayne is still chairman of the
board of that thriving company.