Before motels opened, road trippers could stay in an expensive hotel in a city, pitch a tent in an auto camp where they would have access to shared bathrooms or sleep in their cars.
Then two brothers, Arthur and Alfred Heineman, who owned an architecture firm, opened the first motor hotel. Arthur designed the property so guests could park right by their door. He called it a motor hotel, which was shortened to motel. The Milestone Mo-Tel cost $80,000 to build and it initially cost $1.25 a night to stay in one of the 40 bungalows grouped around a courtyard.
When and where was this first motel?
The world’s first hotel was opened in San Luis Obispo, California, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, in 1925. The brothers had plans to build 18 motels but investment money dried up during the Great Depression. Later renamed to the Motel Inn, it closed in 1991.
– The Travel 100 staff