Tourist Cabin

Description:

From the 1920s to the 1950s, motorists in the Northeast drove on U. S. 1 between New England and Florida. Overnight accommodations were limited to big-city hotels, tourist homes, and family-owned tourist cabins beside the road. Typical of smaller cabins was Ring’s Rest, located half way between Washington and Baltimore near Muirkirk, Maryland. Built in about 1930, the wooden cabins were named Lone Pine Inn until 1934, when Fred E. Ringe, Sr. purchased the establishment and renamed it Ring’s Rest. Each cabin was painted white with green trim and was furnished with a twin bed, two wooden chairs, washbasin on a stand, wall lamp, wall mirror, space heater, and linoleum rug. Guests could use an outhouse or the bathroom and shower inside the Ringe home, which stood on the premises. House trailer owners parked out back, and a grocery store with gasoline pumps at the entrance beside the highway offered a few essentials and services. The cabins were last occupied in the 1960s. In 1981, one cabin was disassembled and moved to the National Museum of American History along with its furnishings.