It was quite an impressive structure compared to the small Mom & Pop places that are nearby, on the other side of Route 6. It first appeared in the Lorain phone book around 1957.
There's not a huge difference between the two postcards, except for some young trees visible in the color shot. (Just like the Slumber Inn shot, I'm suspicious of those clouds in the black and white photo – they look too good!)
Here's the corresponding 'now' shot, showing how the building looks today as part of Sprenger Health Care Systems. After several additions and renovations, it's almost unrecognizable as the former motel. The road leading up to it is no longer the main entrance either, as you can tell by the placement of the table and chairs!
Apparently the Anchor Lodge Motel didn't last very long as a motel. According to the phone book, it was already a nursing home by 1965.
As I mentioned a while back, my family didn't use the stretch of Route 6 from Leavitt Road to the undercut (where Route 611 meets the highway) very often. If we were heading west, we'd just go west down W. 21st Street and pick up Route 6 that way. So that whole stretch of Route 6 containing the motels, the Lorain Arena, McDonald's, the Castle and even the railroad undercut itself were somewhat of a novelty to a kid like me, since I didn't see them very often. That's probably why I'm blogging about them all, forty years later!
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