Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts

The Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts brand was the first motel chain in the United States,[1][2] 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.[3]

Marketed as "Alamo Plaza Tourist Apartments" using distinctive Mission Revival Style architecture, each formed a U-shaped court with multiple buildings fronted by a distinctive façade which mimics the face of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. These properties attempted to distinguish themselves from other motels or cabins of the tourist courts of their era by introducing amenities such as telephones in each room (1936), Beautyrest mattresses on every bed and later swimming pools and televisions in rooms.

The roadside tactic of using distinctive, non-standard architecture to catch the attention of passing motorists would later be used by other chains, such as the Wigwam Motels which served U.S. Route 66 travellers or the easily recognised orange rooftops of the original Howard Johnson chain.

While the chain's expansion continued through both the Great Depression and World War II (wartime construction was typically near U.S. bases, where the properties were needed to temporarily house military personnel) into the heyday of the 1950s, the use of the Pop Spanish Revival tourist court façade by the chain would end by 1960 and the last new location would open in 1965.

History

Initial expansion

In 1929, Edgar Lee Torrance built the first Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts in East Waco, Texas; by 1936 the then-seven motels in the Alamo chain would be among the first to install telephones in each individual room.[4]

By 1941, there were ten Alamo Plaza locations and at the chain's peak in 1955 there were more than twenty.[5]

These motels were "motor courts" as they were laid out in a "C" shape with a courtyard in the centre. With Simmons furniture and Beautyrest mattresses on every bed, the Alamo Plaza rooms were marketed as "tourist apartments" under a slogan of “Catering to those who care.” They were typically located on the U.S. Highway system in major cities in the southeastern United States.

Where they did not themselves contain restaurants, they were typically located with a restaurant adjacent or in close proximity.

"“We cater to tourists and travelling salesmen. We don’t admit couples with local driver’s licenses”"

Locations

Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts

Other properties with independent ownership but modeled on the Alamo façade architecturally:

El Sueño, U.S. Route 66, Claremore, Oklahoma, built by Jack Sibley in 1938,[24] became Adobe Village Apartments.
Lakeview Courts, west of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Park Plaza Courts (six locations) by Milton and Lemuel Stroud of Waco. E. Lee Torrance provided the Strouds with access to Alamo's architect and design but these are an independent chain with an Alamo-like façade.[25]

Park Plaza Courts

A chain of six motel courts, these were architecturally similar to the Alamo model but share neither name nor ownership with the main Alamo Plaza chain.

References

Chuck Hustmyre. After dark, it gets ugly 225 Baton Rouge, October 25, 2007^
indicated the first motel, Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo (1925), was intended to be the basis of a chain, a dream which could have been realized if the depression hadn't come along. Only the one location was ever actually built. Other sources name Quality Courts United (1939), Tourinns (1949) or even Holiday Inn (1952) as candidates for "first motel chain", but all are of more recent vintage than Alamo. Rachel Anne Goodman. Savvy Traveller: "The Very First Motel" American Public Media, 2004^

Ownership and investors

A loosely connected chain in which several owners operated multiple locations each, the group was largely built around founder Edgar Lee Torrance, his former employee William Farner (and Farner's business partner Charles Mooney) and various others brought into the fold by Torrance or Farner. The resulting chain was a collection of nominally independently owned motels that depended on the personalities of various owners.[3]

E. Lee Torrance (founder), a former used car dealer, owned eleven of the twenty-two Alamo Plaza locations. A local Waco judge, Drummond W. Bartlett, was initially co-owner of the one original Waco Alamo property but had no further involvement in the expansion of the Alamo Plaza chain.

William (Bill) Farner worked for Torrance at the Waco location initially; he later would go on to build new locations in the chain (mostly in Texas) in partnership with Charles Mooney. Farner was also involved with efforts to bring new owners into the chain, including a brief entry into franchising at the end of the 1950s.

W.G. "Mac" McGrady, a nephew of E. Lee Torrance, operated a group of "St. Francis Hotel Courts" in Alabama cities which used the original architecture and were Alamo in all but name. The motels' picture postcards promoted these as "The three largest and finest courts in Alabama's three largest cities, Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham. Total of 255 rooms, tile baths, carpeted floors, room telephones, air-conditioned, hotel service and fine restaurants – Approved by AAA and Duncan Hines."[8]

Conversely, E. L. McLallen used the name and features but not the Alamo architecture. A lumber merchant by trade, he entered the chain by purchasing the Memphis Alamo Plaza not long after Torrance had started it. McLallen soon began his own branch (Nashville, Louisville, Knoxville, and Indianapolis) using primarily Colonial-style architecture.

William P. and Mary W. Robinson, as newcomers to the hospitality industry, were introduced to the chain by Farner and Mooney. They opened one 29-unit "Plaza Hotel Court" in Columbus, Georgia, in 1941 using Alamo architecture. Initially serving Fort Benning during World War II, the location was renamed Alamo Plaza Hotel Court with Torrance's blessing.

Milton Stroud of Waco established the Park Plaza Courts (see below), using a similar façade but different branding, mostly on or near U.S. Route 66. These were not part of the main Alamo chain but used the same architect and design.

Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts

History

Initial expansion

Locations

Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts

Park Plaza Courts

See also

References

Franchising and redesign

Decline

Ownership and investors