Its first significant hotel, the El Garces Intermodal Transportation Facility, was built in 1908 to replace the original railway station.

"In the 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath, the first sights on entering California were signs for the town of Needles and for "Carty's Camp", a group of tourist cabins (now abandoned and in disrepair) with a filling station.

[5] After World War II, increased prosperity meant that travellers who once camped as "tin-can tourists" were now staying in a growing number of roadside motels along the highway.

In its heyday, the 66 Motel (like many other contemporary lodgings) offered air conditioning, TV, and kitchenettes, with neon signage pointing the way.

[8] I-40 bypassed Needles c. 1970[1] and the long-abandoned Red Rock Bridge was dismantled in 1976, leaving I-40 as the only viable highway crossing eastward into Arizona.

Small independent Route 66 lodgings, on the town's now-bypassed main street but a mile or more from the nearest freeway exit, would be forced to compete with national chains building newer, larger properties directly adjacent to the I-40 off-ramps.

Klein has plans to revisit the motel sign in the first half of 2021 to give it a touch up of paint and to check the neon's electrical system.