motels and resorts

With the arrival of the automobile roadside cabins changed into motels. The early motels were family run, often mom and pop roadside places with a handful of cabin-like-rooms.

By the 1950s the sizes and operations changed, more cars more traffic, more travelers demanded more service, bigger rooms and comfort.

Motels offered what the traveling public wanted. Clean rooms, parking next to it. Conveniently located for the family on vacation, ideal for the traveling salesman to get a good night's rest without leaving the major roads, as well as the lovers in need of a discrete meeting place.

Soon added to the definition motor court and motel was the new word motor hotel which some people say was nothing but a hotel built around or above parking spaces.

From 1939 to 1960 over 35,000 motels were built in the U.S.

Spas for the Roman upper class and summer mansions were part of the luxuries for the noble born back in old Europe since ancient times.

Following the example of the aristocrats of the Old World the American innkeepers catered to the demand of the traveling public.

The American South developed Luxury Resort such included the Homestead at Hot Springs 1766 in Virginia and The Greenbrier at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia 1780.

After the Civil War many more summer and winter resorts sprung up. Much of this seasonal business eventually turned into year round resort business.

The building of the railroad created instantly new resorts along its track. Carmel in California was once a cluster of cabins a week-end-getaway for city people, just past the end of the track. The Del Monte Hotel in Monterey was the end of the rail road track coming south from San Francisco, and it depended on the visitors arriving by train. Back then Pebble Beach could be visited by coach from the Del Monte Hotel 1880 and the trip to and from was 17 miles.

The Grand Hotel on Michigan's Mackinac Island 1887 was once just a summer resort.