In my review of vintage postcards, this one had me laughing at the name alone. Shangri-La Motel conjured up a vision of some seedy dive one might find on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, or Las Vegas, but not Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Checking this motel’s history out, the name was a bit risqué for a very nice place to stay. It appears the Shangra-La was built in the 1940s, advertised as meeting AAA and Duncan Hines motel standards. In 1957, an ad for the place said that they offered year-round air conditioning, free TV, tile baths, and telephones. It was located 7 blocks from the business section of Tuscaloosa and next door to the famous Waysider Restaurant.
Someone named Freda & Burnie sent this postcard to Mrs. Lydia Mager in Northfield, Minnesota, on February 8, 1957. The traveling couple mailed it from a Tallahassee, Florida, post office. The free postcard would’ve been found in the motel room desk for Freda & Burnie’s use, along with a Gideon’s Bible. The message said:
“Hi there,
We are here to-nite. The tem. is 69, we have our door open. We ran into the places where they had the floods, sure have had a water around here, flowers are in bloom here. Freda & Burnie”
Lydia Mager was a widowed lady living in Northfield, Minnesota, at 1016 S. Water Street. Researching this address, amazingly, the house still stands and is quite cute in appearance. Lydia must’ve thought highly of the postcard for it to have survived. Perhaps she, too, was curious about a motel called Shangri-La.
It took some digging, but I was able to figure out that Freda and Burnie’s last name was Hanson. They too lived in Northfield and were undoubtedly on a road trip. Good for them. Driving is the only way to fly when taking in scenery or stopping at unique little places to eat, like the Waysider Restaurant. Thankfully, it’s still open.
Burnie and Freda Hanson were Lutheran Norwegian Farmers. Married on June 7, 1928, they were unable to have children of their own; thus, they adopted a little girl, Doris Fjerstad. In an interview after her stepparents passed away, Doris told a reporter that she couldn’t have had any better parents than Burnie and Freda.
Burnie Raymond Hanson died on June 7, 1958. He was only 56. Freda Augusta Schultz-Hanson passed away on October 20, 2002, at the age of 96. Lydia Caroline Schultz-Mager was Freda’s older sister. She died on February 23, 1994, at the age of 90.
The Shangri-La Motel may have been one of Tuscaloosa’s finest motor lodges, but by the 1970s, things had gone downhill. A fire took out a good portion of the rooms in 1975, and it was shuttered for good.
In 1979, a Huntsville newspaper reporter used the Shangri-La to make a subtle yet hilarious slam at the Auburn Tiger football team, basically saying that their favorite place to stay while in Tuscaloosa had seen a wrecking ball.
I like to write junk... 