Motels

Motels. The Historic National Road in Ohio. , As motorized transportation developed, motels of all sizes became a fixture along the National Road. Automobile travel in the early 1900s was often an adventure. Overnight accommodations, in the form of hotels, were concentrated in urban centers, with few choices available in rural areas. Many landowners developed facilities for tourists. These “auto camps” provided extra conveniences such as picnic tables, flush toilets, showers and electrical hookups. As more people took to the highways and enterprising business people discovered that travelers were willing to pay for comfort, alternatives to tent and trailer camping developed. As accommodations evolved, “tourist” courts offered privacy of individual cabins. Tourist homes were private homes in which bedrooms were rented to tourists and travelers., After World War II, tourist courts slipped in popularity, supplanted by the motel (“motor hotel”). The motel was new, modern and had an efficient design that less was expensive to construct and maintain. In 1956, the advent of the Interstate highway system prompted the decline of the “mom and pop” motels. Today, many of the individually owned motels remain along older highways like the National Road.