re: Oldes of the O-T…explain how

I stayed at a red roof inn once driving to dallas. It was 3 am, I had been driving for 8 hours and was exhausted. I slept till 7 am and finished my drive. 4 hours of sleep for $40 was worth it.

If you want to experience the oldies in better run motels...

try this website..

mom and pop motels

Like Air Condition and Color T V

You do not miss what you never you had

The US population got became more mobile after WWII, with more cars and better roads, including the advent of the interstate system. With those changes, motels became popular as families traveled more and more. They were new, convenient, and reasonable if all you needed was a place to sleep and get a shower before leaving the next day. Howard Johnson's, Holiday Inns, Best Westerns and so on became prevalent, kind of replacing the earlier mom and pop type motels.

Tastes change and hotels and hot breakfast and exercise rooms are now required.

I grew up in Central Florida and have retired back here. We had loads of the Mom & Pop 1 story motels from the 50’s. Parked in front of your room, swimming pool out front with palm trees. Many have survived and quite a few have been restored and are very cute and many families would stay in these for a week vacationing with a station wagon full of kids. Definitely a different feel from the one pictured.

Its a place to sleep while travelling. As long as it is clean has hot running water, and not in the hood that is all I need.

That was never considered attractive. It was considered cheap.

I've been stuck at a few over the years. Generally they suck and are a last ditch choice.

At one time you had big hotels in big cities, and not much in between. You rode a train or horse and buggy and stayed in rooms above a bar overnight (hence the shared "inn" referring to hotels and bars).

Around 1920-40, cars got popular, long drives got popular, and people needed places to stay on the outskirts of cities or halfway in between. There was a line of thought that it was cheap and easy to build these, and allow the driver to put his car right by his room.

These hotels were more for the state highway system, so as interstates got more popular, these motor hotels or "motels" faded. Most are pretty grubby these days.