Phillips Courts / Budget Inn

1221 W. Sunset Drive, El Reno, OK
Phone:

East < GO > West

The Budget Inn at 1221 W. Sunset Drive, El Reno, OK started out as the Phillips Courts in 1945. Even before that it was the Phillips Camp and before that it was a tourist camp and the Corlee Sinclair Filling Station as far back as 1932. A c. Hackney pulled a permit to build a cafe here in 1937. There must have been cabins here in the early 1940s because ads were running in the paper looking for help to "clean cabins".

J. R. Phillips pulled a permit to build new a Tourist Court, the building to be 108 feet x 14 feet. That would be the first of five such structures, all about the same size, and all still standing in 2022. Together those five building form a giant letter "E". When all five wings were fully built out it had 33 units. The 1949 AAA Tour Book lists the Phillips Courts as having 20 units. But a new permit for more units was issued in 1955. The last permit I found was pulled for a new sign in 1965. Before he pulled the permit for the first new tourist court building the business was called the Phillips Camp, and later the Phillips Motel. Phillips apparently sold the property in the latter half of the 1960s. They added a coffee shop facing the street on the east wing of the motel.

There's a smaller building that was the office owners/managers quarters. The postcard shown below shows gas pumps in front of that building. Phillips pulled a permit for that building after he got the permit for the courts themselves, but before the business reopened in January 1946. An ad for the grand opening of the Phillips Courts include and invitation to check out the "completely new" Phillips 66 service station. I'm not sure when the gas pumps were eliminated, but but a they aren't shown on a mid-50s postcrad.

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Vintage Advertising Highlights

Phillips Courts
El Reno, Okla.
22 New Stucco Units, Simmons Modernistic Furniture. Automatic Thermostat Control Furnace Heat. Single and Double Rooms. Every Room with Tile Bath. All Metal Outside Venetian Blinds.

The front of the card reads:
Phillips Courts
Phone 251 - 1221 Sunset Drive, El Reno, Oklahoma
Mr. & Mrs. J. R. Phillips, Owners. On Highways 66 and 270 West.

NOTE: This postcard has 1966 postmark, but only mentions 22 rooms, that and the use of the Phillips Courts name lead me to thinks it was printed before the last two wings of the motel were built. Also note no mention of televisions most likely dating the card to the mid-50s at the latest.

Photo(s): 2017