Debbie L Sklar / Times of San Diego / Sept. 18, 2026
A motorist traveling through San Diego in the 1930s didn’t need a large hotel to spend the night. Small tourist courts offered a room, a parking space, and a convenient stop along the road.
The tourist court emerged as automobile travel became more common. By the 1930s, Americans increasingly needed lodging that accommodated both themselves and their cars, and San Diego’s major automobile routes became natural locations for this new kind of business.
The city of San Diego identifies the tourist court — also called an auto camp or auto court — as the predecessor of the modern motel. Early courts generally consisted of small, one-story buildings with a limited number of rooms and nearby parking, or individual cabins arranged around a central parking area.
One example was the El Portal Motel and Apartments at 5252 El Cajon Boulevard, along Business Route U.S. 80. A vintage postcard advertised the property as “Doorway to Western Hospitality” and described it as a 54-unit motel and apartment complex with kitchens, a heated pool, and other amenities.
The auto-court concept was not limited to San Diego. It also appeared along the busy routes through nearby communities, giving motorists places to stop as automobile travel expanded throughout the region.
For example, Chula Vista Auto Court was operating at 398 National Avenue by 1934, when a city directory listed the property under John S. Odom with a gas station and restaurant. The court continued to appear in Chula Vista directories later in the decade, illustrating how the automobile had created demand for roadside lodging and related services outside San Diego itself.
The small roadside courts were part of a much larger transformation. San Diego’s automobile routes were becoming lined with businesses designed specifically for motorists, including gas stations, garages, restaurants, and overnight accommodations.
California Auto Court offers another glimpse of the roadside lodging that had become established in San Diego by the early 1940s. A 1941 city directory listed California Auto Court at 3870 Calhoun Street, placing it among San Diego’s tourist camps and auto courts.
And properties such as La Cresta show the physical form of the early auto court: a collection of small accommodations oriented toward motorists rather than a traditional hotel lobby and multistory guest rooms.
An old postcard of the La Cresta Motor Court on El Cajon, c.1930s. (Photo and postcard courtesy of CardCow)
Busy places
Old Town also became an important center for automobile-oriented tourism.
Tourist camps, auto courts, gas stations, and garages appeared along San Diego Avenue and nearby streets. The largest was Young’s Auto Court, located at the corner of San Diego Avenue and Taylor Street.
Young’s Auto Court was a substantial operation for its time. According to the city of San Diego’s Old Town historic resources survey, the property covered an entire block and included approximately 43 individual units, separate restroom facilities, an office, and a gas station.
The original Young’s Auto Court has since been demolished.
More sophistication
La Cresta Motor Court at 4980 El Cajon Boulevard, one of San Diego’s surviving examples of an early roadside auto court. Built in the 1930s. (Photo and caption info courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Public domain)
Another Old Town property showed how the tourist court was evolving into the more sophisticated motor hotel.
Designed by architect Richard Requa, the Casa de Pico Motor Hotel opened in 1940 with rooms arranged around a central patio. George Marston helped finance the project with motel operators Frank K. and Eloise Cardwell.
Its design represented a departure from the more typical auto court. Instead of arranging rooms around a central parking lot, Requa placed the rooms around a large central patio. Wide porches faced the patio, while garages were entered from the rear.
The design deliberately evoked a Spanish Colonial hacienda, fitting into the effort to develop Old Town as a historic tourist district.
The motel also offered amenities that went beyond the basic roadside court. The El Pico Dining Room opened in 1942 to serve motel guests as well as defense workers from nearby aircraft plants. It was renamed El Nopal in 1949.
The Casa de Pico continued operating as an auto court into the 1960s. In 1968, the property was acquired as part of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. The historic buildings are now part of the Fiesta de Reyes complex.
Big developments framed travel
Together, properties such as Chula Vista Auto Court, California Auto Court, Young’s Auto Court, El Portal, La Cresta and Casa de Pico illustrate how San Diego’s roadside lodging developed alongside the automobile.
The earliest courts were practical places where travelers could park their cars and sleep for the night. By the 1940s, some had become carefully designed motor hotels, combining automobile access with architecture, restaurants, and amenities aimed at attracting tourists.
The motel had not yet become the standardized roadside building familiar to later generations. In San Diego, its roots were in the small auto courts and tourist accommodations that appeared when the automobile began changing how people traveled — and where they stopped along the way.
Sources:
City of San Diego, Old Town Community Plan Area Historic Resources Survey Report. The report documents Young’s Auto Court, Casa de Pico Motor Hotel, and the development of automobile-oriented tourism in Old Town.
California State Parks, The Casa de Pico Motor Hotel, Sean K.T. Shiraishi, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
Indiana University Archives, Charles W. Cushman Kodachrome Slides, “Casa de Pico San Diego, Calif.,” June 9, 1940, Call No. P01838.
Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Collection, “El Portal Motel and Apartments,” 5252 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego.
City of San Diego, 1941 City Directory, listing California Auto Court at 3870 Calhoun Street.
City of San Diego, 1950 City Directory, 1950, listing California Auto Court at 3870 Calhoun Street and other area auto courts.
Steve Schoenherr, “A Chronology of Trailer Courts in Chula Vista.”
In 1967-68, when I was a Teaching Association in the Geography Department at what was then San Diego State College, I lived at the AZTEC MOTEL, located a very walkable distance from the campus. I cooked meals in an electric skillet, put the dirty pot and plates into the shower which blasted hot water for 15 minutes. My daily maid service, a kind middle-aged Hispanic, obliging poured a can of Drano each day down the shower drain.