Page 22 - JOAMay2021

THE
THE
AMERICAN
AMERICAN
The Rise and Fall of ROADSIDE

ROADSIDE

MO T E L

No Vacancy

BY MAXINE CARTER-LOME
BY MAXINE CARTER-LOME

n the first decades of the 20th automobile by roughly one-quarter from
century, nothing was more that of early 1900s pricing. The cost of an
Inovel than the automobile. The automobile was still more than the average
idea of personal transportation with American made in a year (the Model T was
the freedom and ability to go where selling for $410 in 1914), but it was fast
the road took you without all the becoming a practical investment for a
limitations inherent in train travel rising middle-class. By 1920, there were
was inspiring. Now, people could over 8 million automobile registrations in
take motor trips in their leisure time this country. A decade later, the number
just for the experience, setting the of registered drivers had almost tripled to
stage for a tourism movement driven 23 million. In just about 30 years, the
by auto enthusiasts excited to see the automobile had gone from a novelty
country on their own terms. invention to a staple of American existence.
The Outlook, a weekly magazine 1920s Oakland Motor Car So, where was everyone going in such a hurry?
published in New York City from 1870-1935, was on the front lines of used car vacation poster
chronicling the rise of the automobile and auto tourism in America. In Taking to the Road
1910, The Outlook reported that there were about 350,000 autos in use
in America. Two years later, it proclaimed that the “automobile has The public was quick to recognize and embrace the recreational
changed interior traveling from a physical racking bore to a distinct nature of the automobile, even in its earliest days. Like their pioneer
frontier outing and a pleasure trip.” Colorado attorney Philip Delany forefathers, they saw it as a way to see and experience the country in
wrote at the time, “The trails of Kit Carson and Boone and Crockett, a more up-close and personal way than train travel afforded. The
and the rest of the early frontiersmen stretch out before the adventurous automobile represented freedom, privacy, control, and adventure –
automobilist.” attributes that resonated with Americans then, as it does with us today.
Initially, it was only upper-class Americans who could afford the Automobilists could now take idle day trips into the countryside,
cost of an automobile, buying one mostly as a novelty and for stopping along the way for a picnic lunch at a picturesque spot. Those
entertainment and amusement purposes. Over the next decade, mass living in rural areas could now more easily drive to the nearest town or
manufacturing and assembly line production reduced the cost of an city to shop and bring goods to market. City dwellers could escape at

Automobile camping at Silver Lake, 1920 Early road tourists also called “Tin Can” Tourists in Denver Colorado, 1918

20 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles