Page 24 - JOAMay2021

The Post-War Motel Boom

During the War years, few Americans had the time to indulge in
tourist travel with the men away at war and the women holding down
jobs on the homefront in their absence, but the desire to hit the open
road was only on idle. It took the end of WW II to shift auto tourism
into second gear. New car sales quadrupled between 1945 and 1955,
and by the end of the 1950s, some 75 percent of American households
owned at least one car.
President Eisenhower instituted the Interstate Highway System in
1956 and Americans were buying automobiles and hitting the road like
never before. Traveling by car to see the country and connect with our
national heritage re-emerged as a patriotic movement. New roads were
built, automobiles became more affordable, guidebooks to historic and
natural sites were published, family-friendly tourist attractions
emerged, and motels, diners, and gas stations cropped up everywhere
along the way. Hitting the open road to “See the USA in your
Chevrolet” was how all Americans, especially a rising middle class with
1950s Holiday Inn Postcard Cape Canaveral, Florida more leisure time, discretionary income, and mobility, could do their
part in our nation’s post-war economic recovery.
The Evolution of the Motor Hotel Similar to the evolution
of towns that sprung up in
Starting in the 1930s, “cottage courts” (also known as “tourist the late 19th century
courts”) emerged as a classier alternative to the rooms for let, dingy around railroad stops to
roadside cabins, and public auto camps, especially for the time for accommodate the needs of
middle-class auto tourists. captive riders, strips of
Cottage courts were initially comprised of individual cottages motels in the middle of
arranged in a semicircle, centered by the manager’s office and surrounding nowhere caused whole
a central lawn area where guests could mingle with other road travelers towns to spring up and put
at the end of the day. This basic layout, more thoughtfully designed new tourist destinations on
with the needs, privacy, comfort, and enjoyment of motorists in mind, the map. Motels opened
helped to establish and standardize the look of “motel” lodging for the near major freeway inter-
next half-century. changes, tourist attractions,
The term “motel” is said to have been first coined by the owner of airports, outside of rural
the Milestone Mo-Tel (an abbreviation of “motor hotel”), built in 1925 towns and cities as a more
in San Luis Obispo, California. The term quickly caught on and soon affordable and private
became the catch-all word for the cottage court model and its future alternative to city hotels
iterations; a word still used today to describe “a roadside hotel designed and small-town lodging
primarily for motorists, typically having the rooms arranged in a low establishments. By 1950,
building with parking directly outside.” there were 50,000 motels
In the evolution of the tourist-court-turned-motel, guest cabins in the U.S. serving half of
went from basic, independent structures to individual, private rooms the 22 million vacationers
fully integrated under a single roof in a basic U- or L-shaped layout, out on the road, traveling
with the manager’s office in the middle and the rooms surrounding a the country.
central courtyard facing the road. Added amenities such as a swimming
pool or playground, and landscaping that evoked a resort- or park-like Indianhead Motel in
setting, were designed to capture the attention and advertise the motel’s Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
desirability to passing motorists.

The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, is one of the few remnants of America’s Vintage photo of the Tahiti Motel
mid-20th century motel boom. photo: Library of Congress

22 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles