Little America Hotels

Interstate 80 Billboard, Little America, Wyoming, May, 2002

Little America is a chain of four hotels in the western United States. The first Little America, called Little America Wyoming, is 24 miles (39 km) west of Green River, and 35 miles (56 km) west of Rock Springs on Interstate 80.^[1] Built in 1952 along the old alignment of U.S. Route 30 which was also the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America, the property began with two fuel pumps, a 24-seat café, and 12 guest rooms. Today the location has 140 rooms and expanded gas pumps for both truck drivers and travelers. For a number of years this location had the world's largest filling station based on the number of pumps in operation — 55 in all.

A penguin was used for many years as their logo, and penguins can still be seen on the roofs at Little America Wyoming.^[2] The penguin was used on most of the numerous billboards advertising the Little America hotel. These billboards were located along Interstate 80. In partial reference to the famously remote Little America station in Antarctica, they reminded travelers in vehicles at regular intervals how close they were to the Little America hotel and that there was nothing else available for many miles in either direction. The last of the penguin billboards was removed in the early 2000s.

Other Little America properties include the Little America Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming;^[3] the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah;^[4] and the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona.^[5][6]

The properties are owned by Robert Earl Holding's Grand America Hotels & Resorts, which also owns the Sinclair Oil Corporation. Holding, who began by operating the original motel in the 1950s, died on April 19, 2013, with a personal net worth of more than $3 billion.^[7]

See also

• List of hotels

References