Wagon Wheel Motel (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the motel once stood. Today, some remains exist.


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Here follows an excerpt from Chris Barbuschak's presentation, "The History of Motels on Route 1 in Fairfax County" on behalf of the Mount Vernon Regional Historical Society:

When the MVRHS first asked me to talk about motels, I thought there's probably 20 tops on Route 1. Boy was I wrong, there are 62! So, a little context about hotels and motels on Richmond Highway. Route 1 is over 2,400 miles long. It's known as America's first main street and it stretches from Maine to Florida and its chock full of mom and pop shacks and businesses, diners, fortune tellers, truck stops and motels. U.S. Route 1 between Washington and Fredericksburg more or less followed the Potomac Path, which was a Native American route along the Potomac River. And when the Europeans came and settled it, they chose the shortest route along the bank of the Potomac as well.

In 1918, the state designated State Route One, which is part of the old Jefferson Davis Highway, and it was called SR1 in 1923. It became State Route 30 in 1926. In less than a year by 1927, the entire stretch of roadway was paved and motels practically popped up overnight. From the 1920s and 1930s, there were tourist ports which were individual cabins that you could stay in. They were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, usually around an office or a picnic area or a restaurant. Then in the 1940s and 1950s, you get into the low slung ranch style motels. And then in the 1960s and 1970s we get a couple of chain motels that come in.

So, Route 1 was the main north and south artery for many years, almost 50 years until Interstate Highway 95 opened up. That connected to Fredericksburg in 1964 and almost overnight all the businesses in the Richmond Highway corridor went downhill and continued to do so. Route 1 kind of had this "no tell" motel vibe to it. Ever since the 1960s, the county tried to get those motels to close and one by one they did. As of today, only nine of those original motels still exist. A couple of them are already on the chopping block.

So buckle up, and lets look at them all:

WAGON WHEEL MOTEL -- 7212 RICHMOND HIGHWAY
The Wagon Wheel Motel is one of the first motels to be built after World War II in the Groveton area. It was built around 1947 by Desiree Ella. The rumor is that President Harry Truman came to play cards here. I don't know if that's true. I've heard that he played cards at other motels on Route 1 as well, but everyone seems to associate the Wagon Wheel with Truman for some reason. The motel had 70 rooms, each with a shower and tub. It had hot water, heat, and wall-to-wall carpeting. It also had a swimming pool, five acres of open lawn, a miniature golf course, children's playground, badminton court and shuffleboard court.

The successor motel eventually had three swimming pools. You can see on one of the early postcards that they name the address as Richmond Road instead of Richmond Highway. The motel was originally going to be torn down in 1983 and they were going to build a much larger tower hotel here, but their plans fell through. It was finally demolished in 1999 and now it's the Public Storage facility. Another section of the motel was built a little further south around 1950 and it still exists today. It was remodeled in the 1970s and operates today as the Quality Inn.