100 Years of Motels

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On December 12, 1925, the first motel in America opened its doors. It had Spanish Mission style architecture, a red roof, and an orange tree outside each door. We trace the rise and fall (and second rise) of motels over the past century: the good, the bad, and yes, the seedy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Amanda.
0:02.1	Hello, Johanna. How are you?
0:03.7	I'm good. So I was interviewing a journalist the other day. Her name is Megan McCray.
0:08.9	She's an editor at the New York Times. And I was asking her about some reporting she'd done on motels in America.
0:17.4	And she shared this little tidbit that I want to play for you.
0:22.6	My favorite motel memory as a kid was happening upon the magic fingers for the first time.
0:35.5	Do you know what the magic fingers are?
0:38.0	Okay, I can't say I'm, in my mind, I associate it with some kind of massage thing, but I don't know what it is.
0:45.5	Okay.
0:45.7	Is it a chair?
0:46.5	Okay.
0:47.0	Is it a bed?
0:48.2	I had never heard of this before I asked Megan to clarify.
0:54.6	Magic fingers was an invention by this man John Hosseling.
1:01.1	In the 50s, he was actually a salesman for a vibrating bed company.
1:06.9	And he discovered in his New Jersey basement that he could actually create a little box that would just vibrate any mattress that you chose.
1:17.6	And this box would be connected to a coin box. So motels could install a magic fingers box on the bottom of a bed.
1:27.4	And for the price of a few quarters, you could have a magic fingers box on the bottom of a bed. And for the price of a few quarters, you could have a massage in the bed from the magic fingers.
1:34.6	Really weird name.
1:37.0	Is this a sex thing?
1:38.1	Do I have to ask?
1:38.7	Is this a sex thing?
	...

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