Editing Motel (section)

===Freeway era===
With the introduction of chains, independent motels started to decline. The emergence of [[freeway]]s bypassing existing highways (such as the Interstate Highway System in the U.S.) caused older motels away from the new roads to lose clientele to motel chains built along the new road's offramps.

Some entire roadside towns were abandoned. [[Amboy, California]] (population 700) had grown as a Route 66 rest stop and would decline with the highway as the opening of [[Interstate 40]] in 1973 bypassed the village entirely. The [[ghost town]] and its 1938 [[Roy's Motel and Café]] were allowed to decay for years and used by film makers in a weathered and deteriorated state.

Even the original 1952 [[Holiday Inn|Holiday Inn Hotel Courts]] in Memphis closed by 1973 and was eventually demolished,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/americas/room-at-the-holiday-inn-how-an-american-icon-was-reinvented-for-the-21st-century-1897256.html | title=Room at the Holiday Inn: How an American icon was reinvented for the 21st century | author=Harriet O'Brien | newspaper=[[The Independent]] | date=February 13, 2010}}</ref> as [[Interstate 40 in Tennessee|I-40]] bypassed [[U.S. Route 70 (Tennessee)|U.S. 70]] and the chain repositioned itself as a mid-price hotel brand. The Twin Bridges Marriott was demolished for parkland in 1990.

Many independent 1950s-era motels would remain in operation, often sold to new owners or renamed, but continued their steady decline as clients were lost to the chains. Often the building's design, as traditionally little more than a long row of individual bedrooms with outside corridors and no kitchen or dining hall, left it ill-suited to any other purpose.