Question: B>Question: Where did we get the word "motel" and where was the first one built?

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And, The Answer Is:

The Answer:

Motel owners must hear endless jokes about Norman Bates and Alfred Hitchcock's film, Psycho.

"Say, we sure liked that shower: a cut above the rest!"

Ha-ha.

Meanwhile the guy at the desk just grins politely, hoping to lure the obnoxious tourist in the Hawaiian sports shirt to the old house on the hill in back to meet mother.

Although the word didn't become common throughout the U.S. until the late 1940s – they had been called tourist courts and camps – the motor hotel, or motel, began (where else?) in California.

The first was the Mo-tel Inn, opened in San Luis Obispo in the mid 1920s.

Named by the facility's architect, the mo-tel was built in the Spanish Mission style then popular.

It consisted of a front office with individual cottages behind it, each with its own garage.

My source doesn't say anything about the shower.

(Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD AND PHRASE ORIGINS by W & M Morris)

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