History of the Tacoma Speedway

Tuesday, November 10th - 7:00pm

Cars line up on the wood track in front of the large grandstands.

Originally the track was dirt and without the extensive grandstands.

The checkered flag goes to the winner of this race at the Tacoma Speedway.

Before the wood track was installed, some drivers found themselves in difficult situations.

All photos are from the collection of Wayne Herstad and the Northwest Collection of the Tacoma Public Library.

If you had lived in Lakewood in the 1920s you would have been able to attend one of the country’s biggest and best car race tracks without traveling outside the city. The Tacoma Speedway operated from 1912 to 1922 at what today is the Clover Park Technical College campus on Steilacoom Boulevard.

According to historian Wayne Herstad, all the big name racers of the day competed at the track. Herstad will speak on the history of the track Nov. 10 at the Lakewood Library. The Lakewood Historical Society is hosting the meeting as its monthly program, according to Becky Huber, president of the organization.

Steve Dunkelberger, in an article written for the Summer 2008 Columbia Magazine, wrote  “The track opened in 1912 after a group of Tacoma businessmen led by Arthur Pitchard, president of the Tacoma Automobile Association, collected backers and built a five-mile, all-dirt track. The course ran around what is now Lakeview Avenue, where the grandstands stood, to Steilacoom Boulevard to Gravelly Lake Drive to 112th Street. The first races were held July 5 and 6, 1912.

"Terrible" Teddy Tetzlaff, a well-known racer of the day, was set to headline the initial race, but he was kidnapped just days before the contest and held for ransom. It was rumored that he was confined in a Tacoma brothel, recalled Herstad with a grin: "When his bosses came to pick him up, he didn’t want to leave."

“The track changed quickly in those first years, shrinking to a three-and-a half-mile course in 1913, then to a two-mile track in 1914. The shorter course more or less ran through what is now Steilacoom Boulevard and Gravelly Lake Drive to 100th, then back to Lakeview.

“Renowned racer Earl Cooper won at Tacoma Speedway in 1913 and 1914. In 1915 he placed second; had he won that year, he would have been able to keep the revolving "Mountamarathon" trophy, which featured Mount Tacoma with race cars etched into its side. But after his 1915 loss, he was obliged to return it. The trophy came back to him, though, when he returned to Tacoma in 1929 - long after his retirement - for a promotional event. The defunct race track’s organizers still had the trophy and honored him with it during a banquet dinner. It now resides in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, to which Cooper donated it in 1955.”

Herstad will augment his talk with photos of the track, the races and the race-car drivers. Originally created as a dirt track, the organizers converted it to a split-wood track in 1915. The 2X4-inch planking was placed end to end, with the narrow side facing the ground. Gaps between each board were stuffed with gravel to economize on lumber. The track required 15 tons of 20-penny nails and two million board feet. Its corners were banked 18 feet to allow faster turns. Unfortunately, the track had constant problems with splinters and gravel shooting into the cars behind the leader and popping tires. "There was a saying that all board tracks were awful, and then there was Tacoma," Herstad noted.

The program will get underway at 7 pm. There is no charge and the public is welcome to attend.