Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-18 | Page 38 | Who's who in Local Automobile Circles

"Wlids llo in locate AwfoiiMjMfe Circles g5 -j t v A 'i s - , - " y V ' 4 - - I ; it : " r 'x x JOHN E. ALEXANDER. John R. Alexander, manager of the retail automobile department of the Inter-Mountain Electric company, needs little introduction to the motorists and the automobile trade of Salt Lake. In fact, he is known so well and so favorably favor-ably among them that when something is needed in the motor car line their first thoughts are of ' ' Alex. ' ' They know that their subsequent visit to the department will not only bring them service, but something that runs it a close second the cheery words of a real optimist. .Something very scarce and valuable these days of hurry. But Alexander is not only known as Alexander alone. Many call him the "Wizard of Auto Accessories," and the name fits him well. In his department he has more than 21,000 parts or accessories ac-cessories and he can locate anything, from the most minute washer to magnetos, mag-netos, carburetors and thousands of other oth-er things before the words have scarcely scarce-ly left the lips of the customer. The speed and dispatch in which he produces pro-duces the wanted accessory is almost amazing and gives one the impression that he must have had the article cached away in his pocket. When Alexander wore knee pants he had his dreams, as is usual with all youngsters. To pilot a monstrous steam engine over the rails at high speed was the ambition that he talked of to his ; playmates by day and dreamed of by night. And the unusual part of it was that he realized his ambition. When but a small lad he obtained work on the railroad and a few years saw him on regular run as fireman. The earth and all therein was his when one day the engineer allowed him to sit at the throttle throt-tle alone while the train puffed up a long grade. But when his engineer was discharged, dis-charged, fitter serving faithfully for many years, when he failed to bring his train to a stop directly in front of a station on slippery tracks, Alexander then and there decided to quit the railroad rail-road for life. ITe then became a traveling salesman aud visited Salt Lake often. Later ho was employed by the Bertram Motor company and when this company Vas taken over by the Intor-Mountain Electric Elec-tric compnnv Alexander was made manager of the retail auto accessory department.