Now A Parking Lot, Downtown Location For Decades Hosted Garages

Today it is difficult to find a spot in the busy city-owned parking lot at northeast corner of the Lake Street and Park Lane intersection, smack dab in the middle of downtown Kirkland.

Eighty years ago it was a Ford Motor Co. dealership owned by Ollis Patty, and Park Lane was named Commercial Ave.

The location must have remained in the auto business for decades, because in the 1950s it was a Standard Oil then Chevron filling station, for a few years operated by the reporter’s father-in-law, Leon Stumpf. Right across Lake Street in the 1950s, ’60 and into the ’70s was a Ben Franklin department store.

Can you imagine what the pictured 1929 Ford Model A sedan would be worth today in mint condition?