Spenard, Anchorage facts for kids

The Spenard Farmers' Market and Spenard windmill are located in the parking lot serving Chilkoot Charlie's in the northern end of Spenard.

The former Anchorage Love Church, now a meeting space operated by the nonprofit Cook Inlet Housing Authority, is located in a section of Spenard with a heavy concentration of Korean-owned businesses and other establishments.

Rage City Rollergirls jammer "Spenard Itch" poses underneath the bridge which carries Spenard Road over Fish Creek.

Spenard is a neighborhood in the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, United States and was historically a separate city from Anchorage. Spenard maintains the flavor of a separate community today, with "Spenardi Gras" being its primary community celebration that encourages a sense of solidarity and separation from the rest of Anchorage. Spenard is a central focus of bohemian lifestyle practitioners and artists and writers, and is well known for its numerous poetry jams, bicycle parties, and other similar events.

The road that bears its name, Spenard Road, begins at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at its southern end, and continues north toward downtown before ending at Westchester Lagoon, where it turns and becomes part of I Street.

History

Before unification of the City of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough in 1975, Spenard was a city in its own right. It is arguably older than Anchorage itself, although records are not clear. Anchorage was founded on Ship Creek during construction of the Alaska Railroad. Spenard began as a lumber camp. The road from the lumber camp to the tent city on Ship Creek was subsequently named "Spenard Road" for Joe Spenard, an owner of the lumber camp. Joe Spenard built a dance hall/resort on the shores of Spenard Lake, which burned down after a brief period of great success. From the beginning, Spenard was the place where Anchorage went to have fun.

Transportation

There is much redevelopment (in the form of mixed-use, transit-oriented development) planned for the Spenard Road corridor, especially in the vicinity of 36th Avenue & Spenard Road. In order to support this development, the neighborhood was placed on the People Mover's "frequent network", with the #40 bus operating every 15 minutes down Spenard Road on weekdays (weekend service operates every 30 minutes). There is also the #65 (once per hour), which takes neighborhood residents to/from the Dimond Center Mall via Jewel Lake Road.