My stepdad was up in the attic the other day when he unearthed an enormous box of postcards his mom had collected. When I came by for a visit, he asked if I wanted to dig into them. I flipped through scenes from all over the place, including a couple of Indianapolis landmarks like the statehouse and the Indiana War Memorial. Then another Indiana card caught my eye: a snapshot of the old North Webster Motel! I’d been through the Kosciusko County community countless times, but couldn’t remember ever seeing a motel. I had to know if it was still there.
I’m sort of a bum when it comes to dating old postcards. Still, the one I found of the North Webster Motel looks to date from the 1950s or 60s. The establishment stood at 811 South Main Street at least since 1957, when it showed up in a USDA aerial photo1. For what it’s worth, the county assessor says the place was built in 19562. The area around it has grown significantly over the past seventy years!
I took a quick photo of the back of the postcard for my own information. When it was printed, the North Webster Motel was run by Mr. and Mrs. J. Oren Thorn. Later, apparently, Lewis Richcreek owned it. A quarter mile south of town (though you wouldn’t know that today), the ten-unit establishment featured electric radiant heat and Simmons Beautyrest mattresses. “Live and Play in North Webster – The Heart of the Lakes” the postcard practically screamed! I wonder what it was like to stay there during its heyday.
Digging up details on the old North Webster Motel wasn’t easy. The only mentions I uncovered in a statewide newspaper search were a few classified ads from the mid-1970s when the place was up for sale3. After that, the trail shifted to a revolving door of owners. These days, the place goes by a new name- The Lodge. The old motel appears to offer efficiency units for weekly or monthly rent. Unfortunately, it seems to stir up more than its fair share of local controversy4.
I’ve been toying with the idea of heading back to North Webster to put together a long piece on the town of about 1,100. Civic officials rebranded the community around the concept of “Camelot” in the late 1960s and converted many of its buildings into places like the King’s Keg, Ye Old Double Dip and Dunk It, and the International Palace of Sports5. Only some of that remains today. Once I go back, I plan to snag my own photo of the old North Webster Motel -a survivor from those halcyon days- and let its walls speak to the changes that have shaped this lakeside town. For now, I’m happy to have plunged down a rabbit hole thanks to this random postcard in my stepdad’s newfound collection.
Sources Cited
1 USDA (1947, May 28- June 3). North Webster Motel. Historic Aerials. Image. Web. Retrieved August 21, 2025.
2 Kosciusko County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2025). Parcel ID: 024-057-094. Kosciusko County, Indiana Assessor. map, Warsaw, IN.
3 North Webster Motel (1975, December 18). The Anderson Herald. p. 43.
4 Stoelting, M. (2021, August 18). Town Offers No Recommendation On The Lodge. Ink Free News [Warsaw]. Web. Retriebed August 21, 2025.
5 McDonald, J. (2009, August 1). International Palace of Sports. Lost Indiana. Web. Retrieved August 21, 2025.
I have a bunch of postcards that my father collected when he was a kid, so mostly from the early 1940s. Lots of them were of hotels. I have not looked at them in ages, and should.
It was a lot of fun- especially the unexpected finds. I have a couple more posts scheduled from my search.
I love these vintage mid-century business postcards. It seems a lot of places had them, and they were all simple: Image on front, a small block of text in the top left advertising in a clean modern typeface. Not too many businesses do that these days, and the postcards of the ones that do are often pretty garish and/or fill up the rear of the postcard to make it unusable as a postcard.
I agree on all accounts. All I ask of a postcard is to have a big photo, some tiny text, and a ton of blank space on the back!