Robert E. Lee Motel - Abingdon, Virginia - Googie Architecture on Waymarking.com

web info:http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/col_sanders_once_cooked_at_lee_motel/10806/

This 1940s-era relic was “the finest hotel between Bristol and Abingdon.

Louthen, 76, owns and operates the Beacon Motel, about a block away from the crumbling shell of the Robert E. Lee Motel. Here, he remembered, even as late as the mid-1990s, you could still drive past the Robert E. Lee and see the neon light shining down, flashing proud from a two-story perch.

In 1995, I first met Louthen. The same day, I also stepped inside what was then, still, a working motel at the Robert E. Lee. Lily Wells, the wife of motel owner Woodrow Wells, told me, “Sometimes, there are people here who take pictures of the general on the sign, just people taking pictures for themselves.”
Still, those same people had to be quick if they wanted to see that neon sign lit. The electric bills were too high to keep it going all the time, Lily Wells said.
Back then, an ailing Woodrow Wells, at age 82, remembered a story that said Col. Harland Sanders – the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken – operated a restaurant on the second floor of the motel.
“But he left just before I bought it,” said Wells, who began handing out keys inside the motel office in 1954.
A copy of an old menu from the “Col. Sanders’ Restaurant” lists a “Generous Portion” of “Kentucky Fried Chicken: Specially Seasoned and Cooked With All the Natural Goodness Sealed In” for $2. You could also get a child’s plate. “For the Little Tot,” the menu says, “You May Have an Extra Plate If you Wish to Serve The Child From Your Portion.”
The restaurant’s location was advertised as being “A-Top Robert E. Lee Motel, Bristol, Va.”
And there was a picture of Col. Sanders on the menu with a greeting: “HOWDY FOLKS! I Promise You a Good Meal. If It’s Not, Don’t Pay For It.”
All this, of course, was many, many meals ago.
Yet Louthen remembers tales of the hustle-and-bustle: “A lot of people would come to that restaurant and go upstairs and eat,” he recalled.
These days, it seems to sadden Louthen to speak about the once-grand establishment. Still, Louthen is against tearing the Robert E. Lee Motel down, saying, “I think they ought to restore it and make a historic landmark.”

Type of Structure: Building If I knew, I'd be an architect: yes Web Address or URL: [Web Link] Upswept Roof / Folded Plate Roof(s): Not Listed Large Dome(s): Not Listed Large Sheet Glass Window(s): Not Listed Boomerang and/or Arrow Shape(s): Not Listed Amoebae Shape(s): Not Listed Atomic Model(s): Not Listed Starburst(s): Not Listed Exposed Steel Beam(s): Not Listed Flying Saucer/Rocket Shape(s): Not Listed Physical Address: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   08/03/2008 macleod1 visited it

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