MTFCA Forum

I came across this photograph of the “auto park at Lake Spenard” and thought I would share. This location is now part of Anchorage and about a quarter mile from my house. The lake was developed by Joe Spenard as a recreation area for Anchorage. This gave the name to the Spenard neighborhood. Among his other businesses, Spenard ran the City Express (a delivery and taxi service) with one of the first gasoline powered cars in Anchorage, a 1913 model T touring car shown in the 2nd picture. I almost got a 1913 a while back and planned to paint it with the City Express livery. The neighborhood of Spenard has a somewhat seedy reputation as for many years it was outside the city limits of Anchorage and there was no state law against prostitution. It was a wild place well into the pipeline days of the 1970s.

There are a lot of Ts in the picture including a speedster. That guy (or gal) was pretty cool to have a speedster in Alaska.

What year for the Auto park picture? My vote is 1925!

Closest coupe appears to be a 1926-‘27.

He opened the Lake Spenard resort in 1916. From the pictures you can see it was rustic but popular. Spenard died in 1934. Evidently, Spenard started painting the cars and trucks (REOs) for the City Express yellow, which led to this bit of advertising doggerel.

"Of all the cars both big and small,

The yellow car just beats them all.

Complete satisfaction, nothing less

Is given by the City Express."

The taxi is a 15-16.

According to the history he had more than one, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Also, since Anchorage was not founded until 1915, the reported 1913 date might be spurious.