St. George Motel Association collection

Collection

Identifier: WASH-058

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The St. George Motel Association collection documents the By-Laws of the association dated July 1, 1949 to February 15, 1973, which is a letter written to Alma Truman, President of the St. George Motel Association, by Utah State Senator Dixie Leavitt.

The records of the St. George Motel Association include events such as a dispute among motel owners regarding whether room rates should be advertised to the public, a discussion about the effect of the new Interstate on motel business, efforts by the motel association to promote tourism in southern Utah, efforts by the motel owners to promote golf in southern Utah, and a dispute with the Terracor Company about the impact of the Bloomington housing development on St. George businesses. There are records of the association’s political activities in seeking tax exemptions and other benefits through legislative contacts.

The records constitute a chronicle of important St. George businesses during the middle of the 20th century. Most of the motels in the association were owned by long-time St. George families, including the Wittwers, Trumans, Holts, Larsens, Paces, Hammonds, Foresmasters, and Atkins.

The collection contains research of the Utah Motel Industry by Lisa-Michele Church, a Utah historian and Salt Lake City (Utah) attorney. The St. George Motel records were given to Lisa Michele-Church in June 2017, during an interview she conducted with Shayne Wittwer of the Wittwer Hospitality Group in St. George, Utah. Wittwer was given the St. George Motel Association records by his family members who had been active in the organization.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within 1949 - 1973

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open and freely available to researchers during Special Collections hours or by appointment. Researchers must complete an Application for Use and show a photo ID prior to accessing materials.

Conditions Governing Use

Biographical / Historical

The stimulus for the growth of roadside motels and motor courts in St. George was the oiling and graveling of the last stretch of the original Arrowhead Trail between Los Angeles, California and Salt Lake City, Utah in January 1931. The road became a major artery for motor travelers throughout the west. These new automobile tourists demanded better lodging facilities to accommodate their overland journeys. Southern Utah’s community leaders jumped at the chance to re-invent their struggling towns and turned their focus on tourism.

Rural Utah towns built motor courts and motels by the dozens, beginning in the 1930s and escalating sharply after World War II. With neon signs inviting cottage rooms, and picturesque names such as “Rugged West” and “Shady Acres”, these motels drove a shift in St. George and other communities along the Arrowhead Trail from an agricultural economy to tourism.

By the 1950s, tourism in Utah generated eight million dollars annually and millions of cars traveled along Highway 91, previously named Arrowhead Trail Highway. The St. George Chamber of Commerce and Motel Association cooperated to place billboards on the road advertising the St. George sunshine and business kept coming.

Hotel chains such as Travelodge, Howard Johnson, and Holiday Inn expanded nationally in the late 1950s and early 1960s, giving the hotel industry a new lodging business model. Customers liked the fact that they could count on a chain looking the same, offering the same amenities, and charging the same price, no matter the location. St. George business people did not miss this trend. Many family-owned motels began to modernize or sell out to new owners. Almost all of the motels in St. George added swimming pools and some added playgrounds. During the 1960s, some motel operators adapted by building bigger facilities, called motor inns or motor lodges.

According to Travel Utah, by 1972 tourism was ranked as the second largest industry in the state and generated an income of nearly $209 million per year. St. George finally saw the millions in tourism revenue, but it came with its own set of problems. The volume of tourists in St. George made larger hotel properties a better investment; twenty rooms were not enough. Highway 91 originally gave rise to the motel boom, but the new Interstate 15 bypassed the center of St. George, and most other southern Utah towns. Within a few years of the Interstate opening, the mom-and-pop motels started disappearing. Chain operators bought some and rebuilt them into standard formats.

Church, Lisa-Michele. “Early Roadside Motels and Motor Courts of St. George.” Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1, 2012, pp. 22-23, 40-42.

Extent

4 Files (4 folders in a gray legal document case)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection consists of minutes from the records of the St. George Motor Court Association in St. George, Utah, later known as the St. George Motel Association, from 1949-1973. It documents roadside motels for travelers to stay while traveling along the Arrowhead Trail Highway that went through St. George, Utah. The Arrowhead Trail Highway was later known as Highway 91, and is Interstate 15 today.

Arrangement

The St. George Motel Association Collection is arranged in four folders. 1. Early Roadside Motels & Motor Courts of St. George, Utah, undated. 2. Early Roadside Motels & Motor Court Pictures, St. George, Utah, undated. 3. Correspondence – Lisa-Michele Church & Douglas Alder, 2010-2011. 4. St. George Motor Court/Motel Association Minutes, 1949-1973.