Holiday Motel Then and Now

2100 W Wyatt Earp Blvd. – Dodge City, Kansas

Westlawn Addition, along the north side of US Highway 50S west of 14th Avenue, was platted in 1930 with all sorts of covenants and restrictions, many of which have been illegal for decades. The block between Westlawn and Gardner Avenues was pretty quiet until the 1940s.

The Hi-Way Cafe opened at what was then 2100 W Chestnut Street in October of 1947.

It is unclear whether she started the business, but Mary H Bledsoe operated the cafe at least as early as October of 1948. Florence Landrum was the manager in the early 1950s. New managers Wilbur and Dorothy Cunningham remodeled the cafe in the Spring of 1954.

After rebranding, Mary Bledsoe reopened the restaurant as The Car-Teria in June of 1956 serving chicken and shrimp boxes, sandwiches, malts, and shakes.

The Nicely family sold the Flamingo Motel in October of 1957 and immediately announced plans to build a new motel with 22 rooms on the site of The Car-Teria. The facility initially did not take up the entire block due to a drainage ditch at the west end.

Holiday Motel opened in February of 1958 without a pool or restaurant.

A small heated pool was added adjacent to the office shortly after the grand opening. In the early 1960s, the motel was expanded westward so that it outlined the entire block. Around that time, the Holiday Restaurant was constructed just west of the pool.

The building itself was unremarkable but the sign out front was a colorful mid-century classic.

Hong Kong Restaurant moved from the Lora-Locke Hotel into the former Holiday Restaurant space in the Summer of 1988.

In the early 2000s, the pool was removed so the restaurant could be expanded in its place. Hong Kong Restaurant closed when the owners of Osaki Sushi and Hibachi approached Kim Lee about renting the space for a sushi restaurant. Osaki opened in the Spring of 2015.

The motel doesn’t seem to have an online presence but the office was open when I stopped by. This is how the Holiday Motel looks today:

I really do understand why the big eye-catching signs have been replaced with plain plastic. I also hate them. These mid-century motels are old enough to qualify for the historic registers. Restoring the fun original signage from roadside America could be the next big trend!

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