No Vacancy

Today we’re looking at a small town motel, or rather what’s left of the business, after it closed long ago. From certain angles it still looks the part, if not a bit run down and showing its age. Picture a road weary traveller one dark stormy night, desperate for shut-eye and only on closer examination realizing they’re a few decades late. It’s out of business, there’s no one about and while the broken neon sign is silent on the matter, it’s soon made clear there is no vacancy.

Before we jump in, data for this piece comes via old telephone books. For a travel-oriented business such as this, that relied on being found, it was a pretty good medium for getting your name out at the time and provides us with a reliable record. Before the Internet, you scanned the AGT directory.

The motel first makes mention in 1961 and vanishes from listings in 1987. It kept pretty much the same name throughout although early on it was listed as an auto-court, before that was changed to motel a couple years later. It appear it had at least several owners with the last calling it quits after perhaps a season or two. Located close to the main route though town at the time, the construction of a new highway bypass in the early 1980s was likely a catalyst for it closing a few years later.

In 1962, an advert reads: “One block off main highway centre of town. Modern units – Reasonable rates.” Another from 1980 is the about same but adds: “Phone, color cable TV and kitchenettes.”

Here’s the features touted in 1986…

Clean – quiet – comfortable.
17 approved family units.
Fully equipped kitchens
Color Cable TV – DD phones
Parking – Winter plug ins
Courtesy coffee.

Colour TV? Comped coffee? Is this the Ritz-Carlton?!!! These might seem like trivial selling points today, but were a big thing not all that long ago. In the old days, a room was literally that, a bed, a bathroom and little else, so here they were upping the ante. How our expectations have changed and what was once a special feature is now blasé or even laughable.

It’s not clear what stood on the property before the motel but it’s along a mostly residential street, so houses could be a possibility. Neither is there info on what happened right after closing. Did it just stand empty, was it used for storage or maybe rented out as social housing? Nothing comes up in a search, but each is possible I guess.

At the beginning of this century, a used car dealer operated out of the old motel office and did so up until a few years ago. Presumably, their lot was that fenced in property right across the alley that bisects the two hunks of land. There’s a few old cars inside that compound, stored I guess, including some vintage beauties (1960 Ford Thunderbird and 1957 Cadillac – tail fins!). If we were to travel back in time, it’d be easy picture them parked out front of the motel. Them, plus a wood-panelled wagon.

Of the seventeen units mentioned in the quoted ad, only four remain today. It’s assumed the others were located where that fenced lot is that we just spoke of, but their disposition is not known.

The motel’s built in the motor-court style common to the mid-century era, that is single level and car friendly. The motel office was a home for those running the business and that was also typical. What’s left of the old sign can still be found near the street and is well weather beaten. The early ’90s Oldsmobile parked on the property fits in well with the gritty surroundings and completes the scene. It almost looks like a movie set and feels untouched, even if dated and unkempt, and the whole scene rather surreal. Like it might still be in business…you know, a Bates’ Motel kind of place…but it’s a slow night.

Over all we suspect the motel is little changed from where it shut down thirty five years prior, or even when built. Once it was little mom and pop run places like it, that travellers relied on. They were small, simple, cheap and friendly. There’s a still a few of them around across the west, but most were long demolished and now but a memory, That this one survives and remains recognizable so long after closing, for us, is a real treat. How cool! It’s just like the places we stayed at as a kid on family road trips and with that the memories come rushing back.

Till the next town and the next retro motel we document, happy trails.

They’re saying…

”Chris and Connie’s posts are among the best….I look forward to reading more…” Glen Bow.

Keeping the theme…
Retro Motels: Medicine Hat Alberta – Neon and cheap rooms.
Lorne Malvo’s Motel Room – From the series Fargo.
Crowsnest Pass then and now – Chinook Motel – A silly little before and after.

Something to say and no one to say it to? Go here: contact us!

Date of Adventure: August 2020.
Location: Small Town Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Old phone books (we love them) at the Calgary Public Library and the Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society, plus Alberta Transportation.

No Vacancy.

Picture them parked out front.

A common style of motel in the 1950s-1960s era.

It’s been the ’80s since you could last book a room here.