The Starlite Motel in Mesa, Ariz. Video by Ash Ponders for The New York Times<\/p>\n
The motel might seem like an ageless fixture of the American landscape, but in fact, this roadside mainstay didn\u2019t exist before Dec. 12, 1925.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Arthur and Alfred Heineman<\/a>, two brothers with a successful Southern California architecture practice, opened the Milestone Mo-Tel, the first \u201cmotor hotel,\u201d in San Luis Obispo, roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n At the time, motorists had limited options. Their dust-covered clothes hardly suited the highbrow standards of most hotels, and parking in cities could be challenging. So many drivers stayed in autocamps, roadside resting places that sometimes offered basics like firewood and communal bathrooms, pitching tents off their running boards and cooking underneath the stars.<\/p>\n In contrast, the brand-new Milestone featured novel comforts like hot showers and private garages. \u201cThere were orange trees in front of every door,\u201d said Thomas Kessler, the executive director of the History Center of San Luis Obispo County<\/a>, adding, \u201cThe idea of being able to reach out and pick an orange from out your window \u2014 you know, they talk about that in \u2018The Grapes of Wrath.\u2019 It\u2019s such a concept of the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n Like those trees, motels blossomed, giving a century\u2019s worth of asphalt explorers a place to park their cars, lay their heads and contemplate what\u2019s down the road, and fulfilling a promise perhaps best expressed in the words of those once-ubiquitous ads for Motel 6:<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll leave the light on for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Hitting the Road<\/p>\n The history of the motel begins with the automobile.<\/p>\n The first official motel, the Milestone Mo-Tel (later renamed the Motel Inn) opened on Dec. 12, 1925, in San Luis Obispo, Calif.<\/p>\n Alamy<\/p>\n 1908<\/p>\n Ford introduces the Model T, a mass-produced car aimed at the middle class. A newly mobile nation suddenly needs better roads.<\/p>\n 1916<\/p>\n President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Aid Road Act<\/a>, laying the groundwork for a novel way to travel: the road trip.<\/p>\n In the early 1920s, motorists often chose to stay in roadside camps because nicer hotels did not cater to travelers arriving covered with dust from the road, and parking could be hard to find in town.<\/p>\n Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/p>\n 1925<\/p>\n In September, the Joint Board on Interstate Highways completes the first federal numbered highway system<\/a>. One of those future highways, Route 66, from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., will come to symbolize driving through the Southwest.<\/p>\n 1925<\/p>\n The Milestone Mo-Tel, the first official motel, opens on Dec. 12. The property, later called the Motel Inn, got its name, according to local lore, because the sign painter determined that the words \u201cMotor Hotel\u201d would not fit in letters of the desired size.<\/p>\n Rise of the Chains<\/p>\n Motels market themselves as roadside attractions.<\/p>\n A Wigwam Village location in Kentucky, one of seven motels the chain eventually operated.<\/p>\n MPI\/Getty Images<\/p>\n 1929<\/p>\n The stock market crashes, fueling the Great Depression, in which large numbers of Americans take to the roads, seeking work and a better life. Those who could afford accommodations increasingly chose lower-cost motels over more expensive hotels.<\/p>\n 1929<\/p>\n Edgar Lee Torrance opens the original Alamo Plaza in East Waco, Texas. With a facade designed to look like the Alamo, it will become one of the first major motel chains in the country.<\/p>\n An Alamo Plaza motel in Gulfport, Miss.<\/p>\n Alamy<\/p>\n 1933<\/p>\n The first Wigwam Village opens in Horse Cave, Ky., featuring a clutch of tepees marked with distinctive zigzag stripes. A notable example of programmatic architecture, in which the building itself advertises the property, it eventually grows to become a chain of seven motels in six states. Three locations remain open today: in Cave City, Ky.; Holbrook, Ariz.; and San Bernardino, Calif.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tourist camp is one sound invention that the American roadside has contributed to the American scene. And as an invention it is more satisfying than the hot dog.\u201d \u2014 \u201cThe Great American Roadside,\u201d James Agee, in an unbylined article for Fortune magazine (September 1934)<\/p>\n 1937<\/p>\n The American Automobile Association begins field inspections of lodgings and restaurants. It also begins publishing a guide that will influence generations of travelers.<\/p>\n War and Wanderlust<\/p>\n As the nation mobilizes, Americans catch the travel bug.<\/p>\n A road sign near Las Vegas in 1942.<\/p>\n Ivan Dmitri\/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1941<\/p>\n The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor draws the United States into World War II, and millions of men and women join the war effort, many traveling far from home. This new mobility whets Americans\u2019 appetites to explore their country.<\/p>\n 1942<\/p>\n Gas rationing is imposed, first in 17 states, then nationwide, temporarily discouraging long recreational road trips and stoking a desire for travel that explodes when rationing ends in 1945.<\/p>\n Gas rationing during World War II led to a pent-up desire to explore the country by car once the war ended.<\/p>\n H. Armstrong Roberts\/ClassicStock, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1944<\/p>\n Ellis Marsalis Sr., the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis\u2019s grandfather, opens the Marsalis Mansion Motel, a 40-room property in Jefferson Parish, La., to house Black travelers, who faced few options in an era of segregation.<\/p>\n 1945<\/p>\n The portmanteau \u201cmotel\u201d is added to Webster\u2019s New International Dictionary, Second Edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n Follow the Lights<\/p>\n Stars, cowboys, crowns and more, all in dazzling colors, appeal to a sense of fantasy.<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n The photographer Carol Highsmith has spent decades documenting all 50 states, a mission that has encompassed countless motel signs.<\/p>\n Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress<\/p>\n The Mom-and-Pop Revolution<\/p>\n Small motels flourish in an era of color, kitsch and civil rights.<\/p>\n Family-owned motels popped up during the postwar boom, offering amenities like TVs, telephones, hot coffee and snacks.<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n 1945<\/p>\n Japan surrenders, ending World War II, and gas rationing winds down. Americans fill up their cars and head out on the highways, where motels are waiting.<\/p>\n 1947<\/p>\n John Lautner, an architect who had studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, builds the Desert Hot Springs Motel, near Palm Springs, Calif. He gives it clean lines and large picture windows, midcentury modern features that will become the calling cards of many roadside motels.<\/p>\n Many motels took a cue from midcentury modern architects like John Lautner, embracing clean lines, big windows and bright colors.<\/p>\n Eric Bard\/Corbis, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1952<\/p>\n Kemmons Wilson, an entrepreneur, opens the first Holiday Inn in Memphis after a road trip with his family. A single room costs $4 per night, the equivalent of about $49 today. By 1972, when Time magazine lauds Wilson on its cover as \u201cthe man with 300,000 beds,\u201d the chain will have more than 1,400 locations in 50 states and 20 foreign countries or territories.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen weekends are a two-day slump, when summer is just too far away, when vacation means doing the same thing again \u2014 you know it\u2019s time to change the pace. Escape now to a new mood at your nearby Holiday Inn!\u201d \u2014 a 1960s magazine ad<\/p>\n 1954<\/p>\n The Howard Johnson\u2019s Motor Lodge opens in Savannah, Ga., expanding on a chain of restaurants known for their many flavors of ice cream.<\/p>\n 1954<\/p>\n The A.G. Gaston Motel opens in Birmingham, Ala. A Black-owned motel catering to Black travelers, it will become a central fixture in the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy use it to organize marches and sit-ins.<\/p>\n Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.<\/p>\n Marion Trikosko\/Library of Congress\/Interim Archives, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1955<\/p>\n Vladimir Nabokov publishes \u201cLolita,\u201d in which the narrator, Humbert Humbert, conducts his illicit relationship with a minor in motels across the country, building on an unsavory reputation of motels that is already taking root in American culture.<\/p>\n 1956<\/p>\n President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the law establishing the Interstate System of highways. During his term, about 10,440 miles of Interstates will open across the country. (There are more than 45,000 miles of Interstates today.)<\/p>\n 1960<\/p>\n The Alfred Hitchcock film \u201cPsycho,\u201d set at the fictional Bates Motel, hits theaters, forever changing how Americans look at motels \u2014 particularly motel showers.<\/p>\n Janet Leigh\u2019s performance in \u201cPsycho\u201d left generations of Americans checking motel bathrooms twice.<\/p>\n Bettmann, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1964<\/p>\n The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans racial segregation by businesses offering food, lodging, gasoline or entertainment to the public. That same year, motels hit their peak, with some 61,000 operating around the country.<\/p>\n 1968<\/p>\n Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4. The National Civil Rights Museum<\/a> is established at the motel in 1991.<\/p>\n Objects of Fascination<\/p>\n Postage-guaranteed key chains, individually wrapped soap, bedside Bibles: Motels have elevated some of our most enduring cultural touchstones.<\/p>\n Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times<\/p>\n Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times<\/p>\n Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times<\/p>\n Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times<\/p>\n Photographs by Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times; Bible: Getty Images<\/p>\n End of the Golden Age<\/p>\n Corporate dominance and lurid associations take a toll.<\/p>\n Motels that once flourished along highways like U.S. 30 in Cheyenne, Wyo., began to fall on hard times in the 1970s as Interstates bypassed them.<\/p>\n Bill Peters\/The Denver Post, via Getty Images<\/p>\n 1970<\/p>\n The United States now has about 30,000 miles of Interstate highways<\/a>, which often bypass small routes and the locally owned motels along them. Chains like Motel 6, Super 8, Days Inn and Rodeway Inn will come to dominate the roadsides.<\/p>\n 1973<\/p>\n The original Holiday Inn, in Memphis, is sold and changes names. The company begins to retire its \u201cGreat Sign\u201d \u2014 the chain\u2019s ubiquitous symbol, topped with a flashing star \u2014 in the early 1980s. The sign is engraved on the headstone<\/a> of the chain\u2019s founder when he dies in 2003<\/a>.<\/p>\n Holiday Inn\u2019s \u201cGreat Sign\u201d was synonymous with the chain for decades.<\/p>\n Library of Congress<\/p>\n 1984<\/p>\n I-40 bypasses the last section of Route 66, near Williams, Ariz<\/a>., and the next year, Route 66 is officially decommissioned, severing many landmark motels\u2019 last link to through traffic.<\/p>\n 1986<\/p>\n The Marsalis Mansion Motel closes.<\/p>\n 1991<\/p>\n The Motel Inn shuts down as newer, more modern hotels siphon customers away. Most of the Motel Inn\u2019s buildings will be demolished in 2004.<\/p>\n 1991<\/p>\n \u201cThelma & Louise,\u201d a memorable road trip film featuring two best friends on the run, debuts. Some of the most pivotal scenes are set in Western motels.<\/p>\n Brad Pitt and Geena Davis in \u201cThelma and Louise.\u201d<\/p>\n MGM<\/p>\n 1992<\/p>\n Roy Lichtenstein paints \u201cInterior With Motel Room Painting<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n A Roadside Renaissance<\/p>\n Nostalgia fuels a movement to rehabilitate classic motels.<\/p>\n The Bluebird Spa City Motor Lodge in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was bought and remodeled by the brand Bluebird by Lark.<\/p>\n Richard Beaven for The New York Times<\/p>\n 1995<\/p>\n Liz Lambert, a former lawyer in New York, returns to her home state of Texas and buys the run-down San Jos\u00e9 Motel in Austin. She revamps and reopens it in 2000 as the Hotel San Jos\u00e9. Ms. Lambert is widely credited with kicking off the motel renovation boom.<\/p>\n The Hotel San Jos\u00e9 in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n Hannah Koehler\/Hotel San Jose<\/p>\n 1999<\/p>\n