In his “Easy Chair” column in the September 1953 issue of Harper's magazine, Utah native son Bernard DeVoto reported on a newly popular form of lodging growing up all over the West—the motel. To him the word motel was an “awkward word, a coinage out of the folksiness that named the suburb's Kan-di-Korner,” but for the motorist it had conveniences that made it superior to a hotel. DeVoto dubbed the motel “the highway's hotel,” a boon to the motorist who wanted nothing to do with tipping bellboys or crowded lobbies but preferred to carry in his own bags to his spacious air-conditioned room.1 According to DeVoto, motels and their towns sprouted like mushrooms along the highways of the West.
DeVoto's commentary is valuable for his accurate description and the signal it sent: motels were here to stay. They were everywhere in the West, along the edges of the highways...
