Tewa Lodge
5715 Central Ave. NE, Albuquerque, NMThe Tewa Lodge is one of the best examples of a largely unaltered post-World War II tourist court remaining along Route 66 in New Mexico. The motel was built in 1946 at the beginning of the tourist boom that stretched the Central Avenue commercial strip much farther east and west along Route 66. Other motels, many of them also using regional Indian names to evoke the Southwest, would soon appear in this area, profiting not only from the traffic along the highway but from visitors attending the New Mexico State Fair, located less than a half mile to the east. The property also qualifies for the way in which its setting, location, design, and materials reflect early tourist court construction in New Mexico. In particular, the spatial arrangement of the complex with its parallel linear plan, its use of neon, judged in 1987 to be among the best in Albuquerque, and its use of several Pueblo Revival Style details to evoke southwestern imagery enhance the significance of the property.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.