This news item from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in Southern California brought on a lot of mixed feelings for me:
GLENDORA – Best Western International has expanded its presence in Southern California with a new location in Glendora.
With roughly 4,200 hotels companywide, the world’s largest hotel chain provides 400,000 travelers with lodging annually and has now set up shop on California’s historic Route 66.
Yet before the Best Western Route 66 Glendora Inn was built, another stood in its place. Built in the 1940s, the original building was torn down by the owner and replaced with the Best Western.
The new hotel taps into the aura of historic Route 66 and is expected to attract many visitors. […]
I’m happy that the hotel’s owner felt that using the Route 66 name would make his establishment more attractive. Route 66 can use publicity, large and small. New businesses that celebrate or at least give a nod to Route 66 are welcome.
However, I’m not pleased that a 1940s motel was razed to do this. It took considerable hunting on the Internet to find out that the motel that once sat at 625 E. Route 66 was the Guest Inn.
I know little about the Guest Inn. I found nothing about it in several Route 66 reference books that I consulted, not even California Route 66 expert Scott Piotrowski’s. It may have been nondescript or even ramshackle.
So Glendora gained a nice, spiffy hotel. But one wonders what it lost when it razed a 60-year-old one.