As you can see in this photo by cyanocorax (via flickr- creative commons), the Lorraine Motel on 450 Mulberry Street in Memphis, TN was actually a motel, just like any other motel. But now, it is the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.

Lorraine Motel's place in history was reserved on April 4, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King was assasinated while he was standing on the balcony outside room no. 306. The assasin was James Earl Ray, who fired a single shot from the Morrow Building, a rooming house whose rear windows faced out towards the Lorraine Motel.

A few days before that, Dr. King, who was in Memphis to support garbage collectors on strike, had checked into the Lorraine Motel. But even before that fateful day, the Lorraine was one of the few go-to Memphis Motels for visiting celebrities and famous people, including Louis Armstrong and Nat Cole.

The Motel remained in business until 1982, when it was foreclosed. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation acquired the property in the subsequent auction, and Lorraine Motel morphed into the National Civil Rights Museum, which opened it's doors to the public in 1991.

An interesting footnote to the motel's association with civil rights is the fact that the last remaining resident of the Lorraine Motel was forcibly evicted, and is apparently still protesting the eviction.

 Memory Motel is a song from the Rolling Stones' 1976 album 'Black and Blue', which was said to be inspired by the Memory Motel & Bar in Montauk, Long Island, New York. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were staying at Andy Warhol's house in Montauk before their famed 'Tour of the Americas '75', when Jagger wrote the song.

The importance of the motel is magnified because the lyrics insinuate a one-night stand with the Hazel eyed Hannah at the Memory Motel. The actual Memory motel & bar in Montauk (pictured above - photo from wikipedia, creative commons) is still open for business, and offers 13 rooms in the center of Montauk's Historical Village.

It's heydey is long past gone, but it's still one of the hottest attractions in Montauk, with shows, live music, celebrity customers and an atmosphere more suitable for a swinging nightclub in New York City.

 And that brings us to the latest motel to join the celebrity list - The Hawaii Motel in Daytona Beach, Florida, where little Caylee Anthony's grandfather - George Anthony, rented out room 106 on Jan 23 with the apparent intent of committing suicide, sent text messages to his family suggesting the same, and even wrote out a suicide note. Police picked up George Anthony safe and sound from the motel.

But the incident turned the motel into an instant hit after it was featured in videos of George Anthony being led away by the police. The motel, which People magazine labeled as 'one of the seedy Daytona Beach motels, is not exactly a tourist hot-spot, but after the incident, the owner says he's getting all kinds of people coming in, wanting to stay in the same room. The motel is located at 1361 S Ridgewood Ave.