For over six decades, advertising slogans on brightly painted teepees along Route 66
chronicled a message to the American public. By the 1930s, teepee shaped curio shops and
hamburger joints appeared across the nation. The teepee had come to represent all the
romance of the wild west. Adults and children alike, instantly translated the lodge of the
migrating plains Indians into an adventure. So it's only natural that an enterprising
individual would come along someday and construct some kind of teepee-looking motel.
When a gentleman by the name of Frank Redford gave the teepee idea life, he probably
wasn't too concerned that when he chose the word "Wigwam" for his village, the
name described not a teepee, but rather, a different form of lodge pole dwelling.
Plans for his first motel called for individual teepees formed of concrete, placed
around a larger teepee which served as an office and lobby. Smaller teepees functioned as
maintenance or storage buildings. Two diamond shaped windows point to four lodge poles
rising from the top. Behind a brightly painted door is a ten- sided room. One wall allows
for the entrance, while the rear and largest wall conceals the bathroom, and on each side
of these are four smaller walls. From a short height, the walls lean inward to meet a
ceiling. Rough-honed hickory and cane furniture was illuminated by table lamps of maple.
The first Wigwam Village was constructed in Horse Cave, Kentucky, followed by Wigwam
Village #2 in nearby Cave City. Teepees later appeared in New Orleans, Louisiana; Orlando,
Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.
Arizona resident Chester E. Lewis, after visiting the Wigwam Village in Cave City,
after returning to his Route 66 town of Holbrook decided to invest in a Wigwam Village of
his own. Franchising wasn't known of in those days, but Redford sold Lewis a set of plans
and blueprints for a teepee motel.
Lewis did most of the work himself, and in the summer of 1950, Wigwam Village #6 stood
in the Arizona sun. A sign facing both lanes of trafficking stated simply, "Wigwam
Motel. Sleep in a wigwam."
Frank put a little something extra in his teepee rooms; a pay radio. For a dime, you
could hear one hour of a favorite radio program.
John Lewis, the youngest of three children, was an infant when his father completed the
village. Chester Lewis II, Elinor, and John, lived in Wigwam Village, a world that most
other children could only dream of. But, for these youngsters, the teepees also meant
chores.
Lewis recalls removing coins from the pay radios. "Dad was a very honest man. I
was just a kid. For years, we emptied those radios. I remember asking him if we really had
to empty them again." John also remembers pumping gas as a boy when autos lined up
for fuel. "Most of them were heading west," he recalls.
And further west, as tourist trade increased, the Route 66 town of Rialto, California
became the home of Wigwam Village #7.
During the golden years of the old highway, these nineteen teepees provided shelter for
weary travelers for many years. But when the inter-state highway system became the main
artery between east and west, business decreased, and the Rialto village experienced a
decrease in business. The village in Holbrook wasn't that lucky. It lay dormant for almost
ten years.
Then in 1988, the village in Holbrook was renovated and reopened the following year by
the Children of Chester E. Lewis. Chester II, Elinor, and John operate #6. And John admits
that the family opened the village more for the memories rather than financial gain.
"It is our most treasured asset," John says. "This is where we grew up. It
is also where many other youngsters grew up just a little."
Lewis believes "Everyone remembers it (the Wigwam Village) from when they were
young, many of the travelers who stop at a Wigwam now were in years past the youngsters
who by fortune stayed for a night in a teepee. Some children, however, could only hope for
such a thrill, as they watched from the car window while a Wigwam Village disappear in the
distance. Today, those same former kids bring their own children to experience the thrill
of sleeping in a teepee."
