photobyjohnbo

Cellpic Sunday – The No-Tel Motel

NO-TEL MOTEL sign.

January 2025

Tucson, Arizona.

For decades, the term “No-tel Motel” has been used to describe a seedy hotel that rents rooms by the hour. Little did I know a No-Tel Motel was open for business in Tucson, Arizona. During a visit to Tucson’s Ignite Sign Museum, I spotted this sign in the museum’s outdoor signage area.

I turned to Google for information on Tucson’s rent-by-the-hour motel. Initially constructed in 1940 as the De Anza Motel, it began as a Spanish Revival-style drive-in motor court built on Oracle Road, a stretch of highway dubbed the Miracle Mile for its string of restaurants and hotels catering to tourists.

After being sold in 1947, the motel changed hands several times before James L. Blair purchased the property in 1975. Blair rebranded it as the No-Tel and introduced “adult movies on closed-circuit TV.” The motel gained a reputation as a sleazy “by-the-hour motel” featuring waterbeds. In 2022, the City of Tucson acquired the No-Tel Motel as part of a low-income housing initiative, with plans to transform it into affordable housing for older adults under the new name “Milagro on Oracle.”

About the photo: This snapshot, captured with my Samsung S23U, required little processing. I cropped it square to remove parts of other signage on display nearby. As the sign was in shadow, I used Luminar Neo’s Relight tool to add exposure compensation to the darker sign and foreground areas.

In a future post, I will feature more signage from Tucson’s commercial history. The Ignite Sign Art Museum is operated by a retired Tucson sign maker who has collected many examples of Tucson’s history for display at his museum. You can click on the image for a better view of the sign in 2K HD via my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

38 comments

  6. Not knowing about the actual meaning I though it might mean: No cellphones here. The sign looks not new so I wondered whether it was voluntary (as in: we want to you to disconnect here) or forced (as in: no cellphone coverage here). Knowing the actual meaning … I’d bring my own bedsheets if I was forced to stay there. 😉

    Reply

  10. Johnbo, I made many trips back and forth between the U.S. and my home here in Mexico, and I always stayed in No Tel Motels on the way down as my van was always full of stuff I was bringing down from the states and each room in such a motel has its own garage to park in. I would drive into the motel, find a room with an empty garage, drive my van in and close the garage door and go into the room. A motel employee would come to the door which had a little flap on it for me to pass the money out for the room. Contact was never made other than a hand passing the money out and another hand giving the receipt. Meals could be ordered and they’ passed them through the same flap in the door. The residence period was 8 hours. It was the very handiest place to stay. The first time I stayed in one was when I was moving to Mexico and my friend Rita rode down with me. We had no idea what kind of a motel it was but found it strange that we couldn’t get a room with twin beds. She was on the bed and flipped on the TV… and could only get porno movies on it! She called my attention to this and as I sat on the corner of the bed, I saw that a bowl on the bedside table was full of condoms. We finally figured it out! Ha. Every other time I drove back and forth–seven times in all–I made sure to stay in the same hotel as security-wise with a van full of art, furniture and other treasures being moved down in shifts, it was the handiest solution.

    Reply

    • That does sound like a secure place to stay. When we travel to and from the southern U.S. for our winter stays, we have some storage tubs in the back of our car. I’m always concerned about smash and grab thieves.
      I’d never heard of a motel with a garage. Were they in Mexico?

      Reply

  13. Wasn’t there a famous female musician conceived there. I recollect hearing that. The lyrics of Lying Eyes tell the story ‘You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
    And your smile is a thin disguise
    I thought by now you’d realize
    There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
    She gets up and pours herself a strong one
    And stares out at the stars up in the sky
    Another night, it’s gonna be a long one
    She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry
    She wonders how it ever got this crazy
    She thinks about a boy she knew in school
    Did she get tired, or did she just get lazy?
    She’s so far gone, she feels just like a fool
    My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things
    You set it up so well, so carefully
    Ain’t it funny how your new life didn’t change things?
    You’re still the same old girl you used to be…”

    Reply

  16. Wow. I didn’t know there was an “actual” no-tell motel. It’s always been a description of a sleezy by-the-hour type of motel for me. It’s fascinating to know there was an original from which the term came from.

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.