Oakhill Court

Today we visit another tourist destination via brochure.  This time it's Oakhill Court cabins and campground in Cassville, Missouri.  "Ideally located near Roaring River and Table Rock Lake".  I've never visited Oakhill, but Roaring River and Table Rock were both vacation destinations for my family when I was a kid.

The Satellite Motel -- Oddly Shaped and Magically Fingered

This is the first of a group of post cards I found at a garage sale last weekend and features the Satellite Motel (Turn Left) of Omaha, Nebraska.

Western Motor Inn

Another brochure from my recent find.  This one is for the Western Motor Inn.  The fact that it boasts "color television in all rooms" lead me to believe it dates from late '60's to early '70's, however, $25.80 per night (noted in pen) seems a little high for that time.  That would be $161.86 today.

No-Tell Show 'n Tell

In my younger days, I knew about the Coral Court, but never thought much about it.  By the time I was passing by, its glory days were long gone and it just looked "depressing", to coin a word my mother used to describe such motels.   It's shadowy grounds and oddly-shaped buildings were more of a curiosity: who would stay in such a run-down looking place?   Coral Court by that time (and even  many years prior) was known as a "No-Tell" Motel.  Rates by the hour and discreet garages to guard any recognition of your car from the street by friends and family.  A getaway for adulterous affairs and pre-marital shenanigans.

 

Coral Court in its finer days

Oh HoJo, Where'dja Go?

I bought a stack of oversized postcards at an estate sale this past weekend.  There were 12 postcards featuring 2 different designs, both for a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge located at 6929 South Lindbergh Blvd in South St. Louis County, Missouri.

As it turns out, it was a only a few miles from the estate sale. That's my neck of the woods, so it intrigued me as I didn't remember there ever being a Howard Johnson's there.  The postcards appear to date from the late 1950's and early 1960's, based on the car models.
On that site today is a retail shopping center with a Marshalls, J. C. Penney furniture store and Krispy Kreme.  Not a hint of HoJo anywhere, completely erased from the landscape. 




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Starting with a corner drugstore and soda fountain in 1925, Howard Deering Johnson built an empire of 1,000 restaurants and 500 Motor Lodges. Known for their orange-roofed inns, weathervane-topped cupolas and 28 flavors of ice cream, they are remembered as an icon of the golden days of cross-country travel. But just as they were peaking in the 1970's, Hojo's fell victim to the oil embargo and the resulting drop in travel. By that time they had diversified their company with other restaurants such as Red Coach Grills and The Ground Round, one of which operated a few miles down the street from this location near 5731 South Lindbergh Blvd. Sold from company to company throughout the 1980's to the 2000's, there stands only 2 Howard Johnsons restaurants today, although the hotel chain continues under the umbrella of a corporate conglomerate that operates other familar chains such as Super 8, Travelodge and Knights Inn.