World's First Motel - San Luis Obispo, CA
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DougK
N 35° 17.478 W 120° 38.896
10S E 713856 N 3907884
On December 12, 1925, Arthur Heineman opened the "Motor Hotel" which eventually became known as the Motel.
Waymark Code: WMEJV6
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 06/06/2012
Views: 4
Historians agree that, in 1925, Pasedena-based architect and developer Arthur Heineman decided to create a "motor hotel" hybrid between rustic auto camps and conventional hotels. But he found that the words "motor hotel didn't fit on his sign, so he scrunched them together.
The Milestone Mo-Tel (later the Motel Inn), located in San Luis Obispo roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, had little garages right next to several dozen bungalows that rented for $1.25 a night. The combination of easy access to rooms and to the highway, reasonable prices, privacy, even a little anonymity, caught on in the lodging industry even though Heineman's plans to establish a chain of similar establishments died during the Depression of 1929.
The Motel Inn is barely a shell anymore. A pair of dilapidated mission-revival style structures are guarded by a chain link fence dressed in barbed wire and yellow caution signs.
Since 1991, when the Motel Inn went out of business, news archives reflect periodic announcements in San Luis Obispo that developers will rehab and reopen the site.
The property is now owned by the adjoining Apple Farm Inn, and manager Dean Hutton says that plans for a major facelift, including a "motoring museum," are once again in the discussion phase.
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