The Motor Court

Karl Schroeder turned the truck off Highway 395 onto South Virginia Street on a Tuesday afternoon in June 1954, drove past the railroad spur and the lumberyard, slowed for the new traffic light at Plumb Lane, and pulled into the gravel apron of the Saddleback Motor Court at the address that was, in another six weeks of paving and signage, going to be its grand opening.

He was forty-seven. He had been raising cattle on six hundred and forty acres in the Carson Valley since 1936, and on a leased adjoining six-forty since 1948, and he had bought the cattle from his father in 1936 and had the original deed in Agnes’s name since 1938, and had never owed a dollar to a bank in his life. He had not intended to be in the motor court business.

But his brother-in-law in Carson City had come to him in November of 1953 with a proposition. The strip on South Virginia, the brother-in-law had said, was where the postwar money was going. The Ho Hum had opened the year before and was already running at ninety percent. The El Rancho on the old Nevada Packing site was about to open with eighty units and a swimming pool and a coffee shop. The Longhorn was going up at eight forty-four South Virginia. There was a lot at a corner four blocks south that the owner would sell, the brother-in-law said, for cash, to four men who could put up forty thousand dollars between them and not flinch. The four men were the brother-in-law and Karl and two ranchers from Gardnerville. Karl had thought about it for three days. He had talked to Agnes. He had put up his share.

Now the place was up. Eighteen units, single-story, white stucco with brown trim, gravel apron, an L-shaped layout around a small lawn and a flagpole. The neon sign on the post by the road was wired and ready but not yet lit. The office had been built first and was already occupied by the manager, a man named Russ Whitlock who had run a motor court in Bakersfield for nine years and had been hired by the four owners on a recommendation from one of the Gardnerville men.

Karl parked beside the office. The afternoon was hot. A handful of cars were on the road but the strip was quiet between the lunch hour and the afternoon traffic. He could see, two lots north, the back of the El Rancho’s pool fence and a corner of its new swimming pool, painted the bright robin’s-egg color all the new pools seemed to be painted that summer. He could see, three lots south, the back of a Phillips 66 station and the gas pumps and the small white office. He could see, across the street, a row of single-story homes from the twenties that the owners would, he understood, sell within five years to whoever wanted the lots.

Russ came out of the office wiping his hands on a rag.

“Karl.”

“Russ.”

“You drove up.”

“I did.”

“Come inside. I have the bookings to show you.”

They went inside. The office was cool. An electric fan was running on the front desk. Russ had a typewriter on the desk and a hand-drawn calendar of August on the wall behind it, the squares filled in with names and arrival times.

“We are sold out the first three weekends after opening,” Russ said. “Friday through Sunday. We have a hold from a parts salesman out of Sacramento for the entire fourth week. And we have a feeler from the Fish and Game folks who want six units for a conference in mid-September.”

“That is good.”

“That is very good. It is better than I was telling the partners to expect.”

Karl sat down on the front edge of the customer chair. He looked at the calendar.

“Russ.”

“Yes.”

“How long do you think this lasts.”

Russ folded the rag and put it on the desk. He sat down behind it. He thought about the question for a moment.

“How long does what last, Karl.”

“This.” Karl made a small gesture with his hand that included the office, the lot, the strip outside, the El Rancho’s pool fence, the Phillips 66, the houses that were going to be sold off. “The strip. The motor court trade. All these places going up at once.”

Russ considered the question.

“That is not a question I have a good answer to,” he said.

“I am asking anyway.”

“All right. I think the boom on the South Virginia strip lasts as long as the highway runs through it. As soon as they build a freeway around it, the strip is in trouble. Every motor court town I have ever seen has gone the same way. The highway brings them up and the freeway takes them down.”

“They are talking about building a freeway.”

“Yes.”

“When.”

“They started saying so two years ago. Could be ten years out. Could be twenty. I do not know.”

“Twenty years,” Karl said.

“Maybe.”

Karl looked out the window. A blue sedan pulled into the El Rancho’s lot two doors up. The driver got out and stretched. A woman got out of the passenger side and shaded her eyes against the sun and looked at the pool fence and went into the office.

“Russ.”

“Yes.”

“You think we will get our forty thousand back before the freeway comes.”

“I think you will get your forty thousand back inside three years, Karl. After that I think you will be ahead. After ten years I think you will have made better money on this lot than on any forty thousand you ever put into cattle. But you asked how long does this last. I am not telling you it lasts forever. I am telling you that it lasts a while, and a while is sometimes all a man gets.”

Karl nodded slowly.

“I have to drive back down for the four o’clock feeding,” he said.

“Drive safe.”

“Russ.”

“Yes.”

“What happens to a motor court,” Karl said, “when the highway moves.”

Russ looked at him for a long moment. He did not answer.

Karl picked up his hat. He went out into the heat.

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