The Buffalo Motel Ushers In the Automobile Age to Houston

by Louis F. Aulbach

Houston began to embrace the automobile as its primary means of personal transportation as early as the late 1920's. The Depression and World War II delayed things a bit, but after the war, the local economy surged, the City's population exploded, the City expanded the local highway
system and the automobile became an integral part of Houston's lifestyle.

Will Hogg spearheaded the move to suburban living with the development of River Oaks. Residents of the suburb commuted to downtown along Buffalo Drive, the City's first major parkway. The four lane roadway, which is now Allen Parkway, paralleled Buffalo Bayou's south bank from
downtown to Shepherd Drive. Getting to work in your personal car was a breeze.

By 1951, a sign of things to come could be seen in the Buffalo Town House Hotel Tourist Court on the southeast corner of Waugh Drive and Buffalo Drive.

The Buffalo Motel, as it was later called, was an automobile traveler's complex that consisted of a filling station directly on the corner, a restaurant along Waugh Drive to the west and the motel lobby and dwellings along Buffalo Drive to the east. Additional townhouse
residential units comprised six buildings at the rear of the property.

This configuration of lodgings, a restaurant and a service station on a prominent corner of a main thoroughfare is familiar to us today. Holiday Inn, La Quinta, Motel 6 and many other hoteliers have joined with the likes of Denny's, the Waffle House and every brand of gas station to set
up along our highways and freeways. It is a scene that is common now, but in the 1950's, it was avant garde.

In the early 1960's, Gus Wortham's American General Insurance Company acquired the Buffalo Motel, and construction began on the first of the five buildings of the American General Center in 1963. The office
complex now occupies a prominent location among the revitalized neighborhoods and new developments along Allen Parkway. And, the automobile is still the Houston commuter's transportation of choice.