History
The History of Motels
The story of the American motel, decade by decade. Start before it had a name, roll through the neon golden age, and arrive at the interstate era that rewrote everything.
Before the interstate, before the chains, the motel grew up right alongside the American road trip. Follow it from the first roadside inns that welcomed early motorists, through the neon and kidney-shaped pools of its golden age, to the fast new highways that quietly changed everything. Each chapter is a short, true story of how we came to travel the way we do.
Before the Motel
The pioneering American stays that were already welcoming travelers before the motel had a name.
The 1930s
As the Great Depression emptied bank accounts and dust buried the plains, Americans kept climbing into their cars, and a new kind of roadside lodging rose to meet them.
The 1940s
The decade that rationing nearly stopped the American road trip, then peace set it loose as never before.
The 1950s
In the decade of tail fins and neon, the roadside motel reached its dazzling peak and reshaped how a nation traveled.
The 1960s
The 1960s were the last golden years of the classic American roadside motel, dazzling and confident even as the interstate and the chains quietly rewrote its future.