Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts

The Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts brand was the first motel chain in the United States,^[1][2] founded by Edgar Lee Torrance in Waco, Texas, in 1929. By 1955, there were more than twenty Alamo Plazas across the southeastern U.S., most controlled by a loosely knit group of a half-dozen investors and operating using common branding or architecture.^[3]

Marketed as "Alamo Plaza Tourist Apartments" using distinctive Mission Revival Style architecture, each formed a U-shaped court with multiple buildings fronted by a distinctive façade which mimics the face of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. These properties attempted to distinguish themselves from other motels or cabins of the tourist courts of their era by introducing amenities such as telephones in each room (1936), Beautyrest mattresses on every bed and later swimming pools and televisions in rooms.

The roadside tactic of using distinctive, non-standard architecture to catch the attention of passing motorists would later be used by other chains, such as the Wigwam Motels which served U.S. Route 66 travellers or the easily recognised orange rooftops of the original Howard Johnson chain.

While the chain's expansion continued through both the Great Depression and World War II (wartime construction was typically near U.S. bases, where the properties were needed to temporarily house military personnel) into the heyday of the 1950s, the use of the Pop Spanish Revival tourist court façade by the chain would end by 1960 and the last new location would open in 1965.