One of the days I’m going to make some compilations of the vast number of vintage signs Curtis Perry has shot in his many travels throughout small towns in the West. But not tonight; I’m falling asleep, and need to turn into my bed at the El Kapp Motel.
And I will sleep well knowing this smiling face is watching over me.
When I first saw the picture, I assumed that was Danny Thomas.
Totally looks like Danny Thomas. Good call.
My brain keeps wanting to call that place the “El Chapo” Motel.
Great sign, and appears to be out of Raton, NM (on the Colorado-New Mexico border). Google street view still shows the hotel, but a generic “Rodeway Inns” sign sits out front.
That’s it… the archived StreetView image from 2012 still has the El Kapp sign. What a pity it was taken down… these old signs add so much to an area’s character.
The HBO sign dates back to the late, late 70’s or early 80’s. I’m sure it was a big draw for guests in its day!!
I can imagine a Cathode-ray tube TV with the coaxial cable attached to the back (ie: cable ready!) or some type of black box sitting on top.
It is a shame that those classic motels cannot form some kind of “Michelin Guide” so that travelers can know what they will be getting. A classic restaurant or other business can get a local following, but a motel relies on transient business. Maybe there is such a guide and I just don’t know about it. I would love to stay in something like this if it were kept up and if you could be reasonably certain of avoiding roaches or bullets through the walls from drug deals gone bad.
Does AAA still publish their guides? I’m seeing “travel guides” on their web site, but those appear to be mostly lists of tourist attractions rather than approved hotels. I seem to remember that getting listed in the old paper guides involved some sort of inspection from AAA’s staff. Although I’ve also heard a joke that the quality of a motel is inversely proportional to how prominently they display their “AAA Approved” sign, so I’m not sure how through or frequent those inspections are/were.
I suppose sites like TripAdvisor mostly fill that role now. I do generally try to look at the reviews there if I’m considering staying at a place that’s not part of a chain.
Look for AAA Diamond Program on the website. So, yes, they still personally inspect lodgings. I find typical “star ratings” almost worthless. Even in Europe, where the star ratings are more regulated, my experience is that variations are huge among two star hotels.
Stayed here a few years ago during a drive from AZ to MA (2500 miles in three days):
I’ll bet that there are a lot of jokes about the name of this motel locally.
100% Refrigerated Air!
Good grief, if you could turn in with Captain Kapp’s grisly visage illuminated outside your window, then you lack imagination.
Also, at a glance, I mistook the HBO sign for “HOBO Free In Your Room”, which I then briefly took to be likely a current warning rather than an historic feature.