Colo Motel

About Colo Motel

Reed/Niland Corner began in 1923, when Charlie Reed opened a small filling station on his farm at the spot where two of the country's early named highways came together. The transcontinental Lincoln Highway ran east and west through here, and the corner grew where it met the long north-south route that later carried travelers up and down the middle of the country. A lunch stand came a few years later, cabins for overnight guests followed, and by the late 1940s a proper little motel had replaced them. For decades this was a true one-stop: gas, a hot meal, and a bed, all within a few steps, exactly what a driver needed before the interstate came along and quieted the old road. The Niland family later gave the corner to the town of Colo, and the buildings were carefully restored to their mid-century look. The Colo Motel reopened after that restoration and still takes travelers today. Next door, Niland's Cafe glows under period neon, and the former gas station stands as a small museum. It is one of the few complete highway service corners of its kind still standing in the country.

What Colo Motel Is Known For

What the Colo Motel is proudest of is the crossroads itself: a rare, intact roadside corner from the great age of the named highways, preserved rather than paved over. Reed/Niland Corner is celebrated as one of the finest surviving one-stops in the country, and choosing to sleep here is a small act of keeping that history alive.

Amenities

• WiFi
• In-room television
• Wireless internet
• Guest-controlled heating and cooling
• Quilt-dressed beds
• Adjacent historic cafe
• On-site highway museum

The Room

There are only a handful of rooms here, and they are plainly and deliberately simple. Expect a clean, cozy, character-filled room rather than a resort suite: firm, comfortable beds dressed in quilts, wrought-iron touches that nod to the restoration, and modest square footage that some guests happily call snug. Each room has its own guest-controlled heating and cooling, a television, and wireless internet, plus the rare comfort of a cafe next door for a meal. This is a spartan, honest stay done well, and guests tend to praise how tidy and quiet the rooms are once the door closes.

The Grounds

The setting is the whole point. The motel is one piece of the restored corner, sharing its ground with the historic cafe and the old filling-station museum, all dressed to their mid-century prime. After dark the neon comes on and the corner takes on the warm, humming glow of a roadside stop from another era. It is a small, flat, prairie-edge lot where the old highways crossed, quiet at night once the day's traffic thins.

The Experience

Staying here is a road-trip-history experience more than a hotel stay. You come for the feeling of pulling off the Lincoln Highway at a genuine surviving one-stop in the heart of Iowa, walking to a neon-lit cafe for a meal, and sleeping a few steps from where drivers have stopped for a century. It rewards travelers who love back roads, old signs, and the romance of the early American highway.

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