For 27 years, Kennecott and McCarthy had a symbiotic relationship. Kennecott was a “dry” company town with 600 unmarried men performing dangerous work under extreme conditions. McCarthy provided entertainment in the form of saloons, restaurants, pool halls, and a red light district. As you can imagine, the historic buildings and townspeople of that time had some interesting stories to tell.

So let’s start with the place that many of these men ended up after indulging in too much entertainment, the jail. This was the kind of jail that was rarely locked. It provided a warm place for the rowdies to sober up, and even the local taxi came by to take the miners back up the hill, 4 miles up a 3% grade, so they wouldn’t miss their next shift. That is a level of service we don’t see very much nowadays. Unfortunately, nothing is left of the building but an old picture. It looks like a wooden 2-story bunkhouse.

Ma Johnson’s Hotel however was the complete opposite of the jail. It was the definition of luxury in 1923 with heat, electricity, and fresh eggs. It is one of two remaining original false fronts (think Hollywood movie set) buildings left. This was not the Johnson’s first hotel in McCarthy, however. They had started their lodging business with the McCarthy Hotel which burned down in 1921. The cause of the fire….a cigarette smoker.

There was another fire in town at the same time, the home of Kate Kennedy burned down (cause not stated). Kate was the town’s famous madam, appropriately nicknamed The McCarthy Madam. Her reputation was questionable, but her generosity was not. Even though her own home burned down, and no collection was started to help her rebuild, she still gave money to the Johnson’s collection to help them rebuild their hotel.

There is one last historic personality to talk about, before I get to Fran (the local man I met today). McCarthy had its own dress shop, and the ladies in town were decked out in the latest fashions thanks to Mrs. Snyder. Mrs. Snyder was a chorus girl in Chicago and famously said, “If you see it in Chicago, I can make it in McCarthy.”

Now onto Fran. We were sitting on the patio at the local hotspot, The Potato (which surprisingly did not have many potato-forward options on the menu), when a pristine green 1920’s Model T drove by. I couldn’t believe, out here, in working condition and looking like it just came off the showroom floor. As we walked through town, we found half a dozen classic cars in the same condition parked near Ma Johnson’s Hotel. A friendly guy walked up to us and informed us that the green Model T he was driving earlier was his favorite. He is the caretaker for these cars, and is absolutely passionate about them.

He walked us over to the General Motor’s LaSalle and encouraged me to sit inside. The back seat was more comfortable than a Lazy-boy recliner. And flanking the back of the front seat were two Tiffany vases. Let’s pause for a minute, here. Two very expensive glass vases that were made in New York City, traveled all the way across the country, and down the McCarthy Road in Alaska. A road that today’s rental car companies feel is so rough you have to sign an agreement that you will not drive down it. And there they were, in tact 100 years later in a town tourists access using a pedestrian bridge to cross a roaring river.

He told us that the car was inoperable until recently, when he was able to find a used distributor cap on eBay for the mere cost of $400. The cap was made out of Bakelite. He was super excited to find it; he had been looking for a really long time. And now Fran offers rides in the car.

Apparently these cars are stored under the deck of the general store in winter, but Fran has successfully procured a car cover for the LaSalle and it is in amazing shape. Not even an Alaskan winter can dull the amazing beauty of a group of vintage cars cared for by a passionate person. Fran embraced the philosophies of wabi-sabi and talked about the beauty of imperfection. He believed every imperfection caused by people and the environment made the cars even more beautiful.

Correction: I believe this is the first correction I have made in my blogging history (but not my marital history because I am always right ;)), but I felt I needed to. At the interesting McCarthy Historic Museum, they had one of those pulley cars you had to use to cross the river before the pedestrian footbridge was built in 1997. I thought the car was shaped like an enclosed ore car used by the railroad. But, no, it was much worse. It looked like a vintage teeter-totter but without sides. I was going to describe it to you, but I’ll let the photo do the talking. Remember from my post a couple of days ago, Mark took his two toddlers, their bicycles, and their luggage across a raging river in this thing.