Motel by the Roadside: America's Room for the Night

Abstract

The origins of the American motel are rooted in the traveler's use of the automobile. After 1910 the need for inexpensive overnight facilities convenient to the roadside led to the establishment of auto camps in the United States, especially in the West. In the East, the tourist home served a similar function. The highway traveler's rejection of the hotel (most hotels were located in congested downtowns and lacked adequate parking facilities) prompted the rapid evolution of cabin camps, cottage courts, motor courts, motor inns, and, eventually, highway hotels. Standardizing influences were exerted first through trade associations and then through chain and franchise corporations. Changing motel morphology was characterized by evolution rather than revolution until the revised tax code of 1954 and the Highway Act of 1956 vastly accelerated motel construction attracting corporate investors. Hotels and today's larger motels are very similar with increased emphasis on public as opposed to private space and increased formality. Thus in fifty years the motel has come full cycle as an alternative to hotel accommodation.