A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California, which was built in 1925. The term referred to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before terminating in Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).
Ramada is a large American multinational hotel chain owned by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. As of December 31, 2022, it operates 851 hotels with 120,344 rooms across 63 countries under the Ramada brand.
Travelodge refers to several hotel chains around the world. Current operations include: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and several countries in Asia. As of December 31, 2018, it has 435 properties with 31,005 rooms.
La Quinta Inns & Suites is a chain of limited service hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Honduras. La Quinta Holdings, Inc. first sold shares to the public in April 2014. La Quinta has headquarters in Irving, Texas. As of December 31, 2018, the company owns and operates 914 properties with 89,456 rooms.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc. is an American hotel company based in Parsippany, New Jersey, United States. It describes itself as the largest hotel franchisor in the world, with 9,280 locations. It has a portfolio of 20 hotel brands, including Baymont, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, La Quinta, Ramada, Super 8, Travelodge, and Wyndham.
Trost & Trost Architects & Engineers, often known as Trost & Trost, was an architectural firm based in El Paso, Texas. The firm's chief designer was Henry Charles Trost, who was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1860. Trost moved from Chicago to Tucson, Arizona in 1899 and to El Paso in 1903. He partnered with Robert Rust to form Trost & Rust. Rust died in 1905 and later that year Trost formed the firm of Trost & Trost with his twin brother Gustavus Adolphus Trost, also an architect, who had joined the firm as a structural engineer. Between 1903 and Henry Trost's death on September 19, 1933, the firm designed hundreds of buildings in the El Paso area and in other Southwestern cities, including Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson, and San Angelo.
Rodeway Inn is a chain of economy-priced hotels in the United States and Canada. Founded by Michael Robinson in 1962, the franchise is now led by Choice Hotels corporation.
The historic U.S. Route 66 ran east–west across the central part of the state of New Mexico, along the path now taken by Interstate 40 (I-40). However, until 1937, it took a longer route via Los Lunas, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe, now roughly New Mexico State Road 6 (NM 6), I-25, and US 84. Large portions of the old road parallel to I-40 have been designated NM 117, NM 118, NM 122, NM 124, NM 333, three separate loops of I-40 Business, and state-maintained frontage roads.
Baymont Inn & Suites is a hotel franchise owned by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and based in the United States. As of December 31, 2018, it has 513 properties with 40,541 rooms.
The Vagabond Inn is an upper-end economy and mid-priced chain of hotels and motels located on the West Coast of the United States. The Vagabond Inn brand is franchised by Vagabond Inn Corporation of El Segundo, California. Today, there are more than 30 Vagabond Inn locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas. The hotels are generally located in busy markets near popular tourist destinations, major attractions, major cities, and airports, ranging in size from 25 to 200 guestrooms.
Phoenix City Square, formerly Kent Plaza and the Rosenzweig Center, is a mixed use high rise complex covering 15 acres at 3800-4000 N. Central Ave. in Phoenix, Arizona. The project was developed by the Del Webb Corporation in 1962. The complex features 3 office towers, a hotel, an open-air retail plaza, and a 1200-car parking garage. City Square was designed by the architectural firm of Flatow, Moore, Bryan, and Fairburn. The towers were constructed in 1962, 1964, and 1971. 3800 Tower is 194,482 square feet (18,068.0 m2); 3838 Tower is 236,094 square feet (21,933.9 m2); and 4000 Tower is 295,797 square feet. There is also a large 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) Fitness Center, known as Sports Club at City Square, that is part of the complex.
Red Lion Hotels is a full-service, midscale hotel brand owned by Red Lion Hotels Corporation.
Hotel Valley Ho is a historic hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. Also called the Valley Ho and, for 28 years, the Ramada Valley Ho, the hotel was originally designed by Edward L. Varney. It first opened in 1956 with a forward-looking and futuristic design. Movie stars and famous baseball players stayed, and the building quickly became known for its trendsetting guests and its fashionable atmosphere. The success of the venture resulted in expansion in 1958, with two additional two-story wings of guest rooms extending to the north. Though initially proposed by Varney, a central tower of guest rooms, rising over the lobby, was not built.
The Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts brand was the first motel chain in the United States, founded by Edgar Lee Torrance in Waco, Texas, in 1929. By 1955, there were more than twenty Alamo Plazas across the southeastern U.S., most controlled by a loosely knit group of a half-dozen investors and operating using common branding or architecture.
The Del E. Webb Construction Company was a construction company that was founded in 1928 and developed by Del Webb. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, it became the Del E. Webb Corporation a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1960. The same year, the corporation unveiled Sun City, outside Phoenix, as the first community designed for senior citizens. Many more Sun Cities were built by the corporation in the following decades. Along with construction, the corporation was also involved in real estate and owned several properties mainly hotels and casinos, many of which were built and/or expanded by the company. The company was purchased in 2001 by Pulte Homes. Pulte Homes since merged with Centex Corp. and is now PulteGroup. Del Webb continues as a brand of PulteGroup.
Whiting Brothers was a chain of gasoline stations established in 1926 and based in St. Johns and Holbrook, Arizona. At its peak, it operated more than a hundred filling stations, fifteen motels and various truck stops under a slogan of "quality gas for less".
The Downtowner Motor Inn is a historic motel on Central Avenue in Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. Opened in 1965 as the 46th property of the Memphis, Tennessee-based, Downtowner Motor Inn chain, which operated economy-priced motels in city centers across the U.S. In 1972, the motel was sold and became a Quality Inn. It has also operated as a Ramada and most recently as the Hotel Blue, which closed in 2017. In 2020, it was announced that the motel would be renovated by the Los Angeles–based ARRIVE Hotels & Restaurants to reopen in 2022. These plans were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and ARRIVE Hotels was purchased by a different hotel company, Palisociety, in 2021. After several years of delays, the project was reported in 2023 to be "back on track" with a targeted completion date of December 2024.
