Terry O'Reilly

When my wife and I drive up Highway 11 from Toronto to Cottage Country in Ontario, I am struck by the number of motels still in business.

The word motel is short for motor hotels.

While the word hotel first appeared in the English language around 1687, the word motel didn't appear until 1925, when automobile travel was becoming more and more popular.

As a matter of fact, the very first motel popped up in California in 1925.

It was called the Milestone Mo-Tel and was owned by brothers Arthur and Alfred Heinemann.

They reportedly came up with the word Mo-Tel because they couldn't fit the words Milestone Motor Hotel on their sign, so they shortened it.

Before motels, motorists used auto camps when traveling, which were usually separate cabins on highways that offered no private facilities.

Eventually, those separate cabins morphed into long blocks of rooms under one roof.

In those early days, hotels were mostly built in the middle of towns and cities near railway stations.

Those hotels didn't foresee the popularity of the automobile, and as a result, didn't offer enough parking space.

That's where the motel saw its opportunity.

Entrepreneurs began buying land on the edge of towns and on highways.

These motels offered motorists convenient lodgings as they could walk right into their rooms from the parking lot.

And best of all, they featured indoor plumbing.

The word motel entered dictionaries in 1945.

After World War II, when gas rationing stopped, there was a boom in automobile sales, and that fueled the construction of motels on the nation's highways.

By 1960, there were over 65,000 motels across Canada and the U.S.,

You may remember that motels had unique key fobs.

They doubled as postage-paid stamps, so guests who forgot to return their keys at checkout could just pop them directly into mailboxes wherever they happened to be in the world.

While motels seem to be disappearing these days due to air travel and the emergence of Airbnb, motels still offer a simple, convenient option –