Interesting read in the NYT today …
“The motel might seem like an ageless fixture of the American landscape, but in fact, this roadside mainstay didn’t exist before Dec. 12, 1925.
That’s when Arthur and Alfred Heineman, two brothers with a successful Southern California architecture practice, opened the Milestone Mo-Tel, the first “motor hotel,” in San Luis Obispo, roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
At the time, motorists had limited options. Their dust-covered clothes hardly suited the highbrow standards of most hotels, and parking in cities could be challenging. So many drivers stayed in autocamps, roadside resting places that sometimes offered basics like firewood and communal bathrooms, pitching tents off their running boards and cooking underneath the stars.
Sure seems like those early adapters in the 1920 were actually “overlanding.”
Here is a gift link to the full story.