Then & Now: St. George Utah Hotels And Motels

St. George Utah has certainly changed a lot over the years.

From its humble beginnings as a cotton growing mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1800’s, up until the present day, Utah's Dixie has continued to evolve and change with the times.

Particularly in the 1950s and '60s, St. George was largely known as a little town on the way to somewhere else. Weary travelers on their way to Zion National Park, Salt lake City, or Las Vegas would stop in St. In St. George for a good night's sleep and perhaps a dip in a pool to cool off.

As you'll see in this gallery below, motels were all the rage back then. With the end of World War II came unprecedented economic prosperity, and the “baby boom”. 

Suddenly people found themselves with disposable income, economic mobility, cheap college tuition, affordable housing, health care, and all kinds of other things my generation can’t even IMAGINE having for ourselves at this point.  

With a newly completed Interstate Highway System, people were able to travel from one end of the country to the other with their families via automobile. 

I'm not a historian, but based on my personal experience with long family car trips, I'm guessing this is around the time that “wet willies” and the phrase "Are we there yet??" began.  

What's fascinating about comparing modern times with the past, is how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. Some locations have been completely demolished while others continue to slap a new coat of paint on the old structures and consider it good.

All right enough of me talking, let's get to the pictures shall we?

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