I've wondered for some time the source of the street names,; mostly the N-S streets such as MacArthur, Rockwell, May, Council, and the like, but also those E-W streets such as Wilshire Boulevard (noted parenthetically on some maps as NW 78th), and Memorial Road (NW 136). Hefner's an easy one (named for the 1940s mayor after the building of the lake, I presume), as well as Britton (a town since annexed). The others, as well as those I haven't mentioned, escape me.

Very good question.

I grew up near Meridian and always wondered about the source of that name as well.

work your majic Doug.

Wilshire is in Nichols Hills, and most of those have British names: Coventry, Devonshire, Bedford, Avondale, Dorchester, etc. I think, although I'm too lazy to check, that it's actually spelled Wiltshire in England, but otherwise I bet that's how it got it's name.

isn't macarthur named after the general?

I don't know much about Oklahoma City streets, but if it's Midwest City street history you want, I can give you that.

Near downtown, in particular, you see streets named for City Fathers and such: Anton Classen, Dr. Delos Walker, John Shartel, Capt. W. L. Couch, Capt. Daniel Stiles, Charles F. Colcord.

Don't forget Oklahoman mogel, E.K. Gaylord. oh the gaylords...

I was just thinking today driving down 23rd St., and seeing the capitol in my rearview mirror that it should be called Capitol 'whatever'.

isn't macarthur named after the general?

If it is, I wonder what it was before (if the street existed back then)?

Wilshire runs all the way across town...

I don't know much about Oklahoma City streets, but if it's Midwest City street history you want, I can give you that.

yeah... i grew up in mwc, so i'm right there with ya. isn't there a macarthur there too. a lot of those streets have to do with wwII and aviation.

dang doug... we need you dawg!
ya know, i hope in the future they come up with some way to download people's brains. cuz he's got a ton of relevant, useful info for our city.
i guess he's already done it to a certain degree with his blog.
on second thought... i dunno if i'd want people surveying all that's in my head.

MWC streets are interesting. Especially the original mile that has everything in alphabetical order.

Several months back someone e-mailed me a question asking something similar, where the name Harvey or something downtown came from. I don't know. I've never done "street research" and, for the old Oklahoma City, it would be quite a task, if even doable, to find out. Maybe one day I'll look, but right now I'm trying to get my Springlake book done ... Still could use some anecdotes, if anyone has some.

Elm street and Oak street are in every major city around the country, and they were all named after my left and right biceps, respectively (I'm a mighty-righty).

Well, I've uncovered the beginning of origins with one street!

I decided, after coming home way too early last night, to try again to look for historical maps. I found a hit that was somewhat unrelated to the Oklahoma Historical Society, which led me to just search over there. And they have some map scans in one of the online searchable collections, from 1908 to 1967!

So, by this, at a point between 1960 and 1967 Rockwell Ave. received its present naming from "West Avenue"; the 1960 Bekins map notes this street thusly (as well as present-day Wiley Post Airport as "Tulakes Airport"), and a 1967 map shows this as Rockwell (and the airport as presently named). MacArthur was named as such since at least 1944 by a map from the same year, with a slightly-differently-shaped Lake Hefner (presumably since it was still filling?) labeled "Bluff Creek Reservoir". Also, and I don't know if this is Bekins's error, but Memorial (136th), 150th, and 164th streets are labeled "137th", "152nd", and "167th".

Also, street names vary along the length in a couple maps; one listed Portland Ave. as "Jefferson Ave" a bit more south, among other names elsewhere along its path in an undated Peerless press map that, if I had to guess based on its focus of Grand Avenue as the beltline and the phone number "Walnut 543" dates to the 20s, maybe early thirties.

Great post, Free! Thanks for digging up this info!

at a point between 1960 and 1967 Rockwell Ave. received its present naming from "West Avenue"

Isn't there (or wasn't there once) a Rockwell Aviation facility on the SW corner of Rockwell & NW 50th?

I'm sure the street name was somehow related to that or what is now Wiley Post Airport.

Links to this information.

I hesitate to direct link the actual PDFs of the maps because of bandwidth concerns, so:

OHS Photograph Collection (http://www.okhistory.org/research/collections/photos.html)

I clicked on "Online Catalog" in searching for photographs, then "Archives", searched for "oklahoma city map", and I scrolled down the list of hits to "Oklahoma Historical Society Map Collection".

I'm sure, upon thinking, that there's a bunch of gems I've missed.

One of the weirder aspects of the OKC grid is the blocks-per-mile count: it's consistently inconsistent. Had they gone past 122nd with the 15 count that prevails on the southside (29 / 44 / 59 / 74 / 89 and so forth), you'd indeed have Memorial at 137th, followed by 152nd and 167th. But 14 is the rule on the northside, at least once you get past Hefner (108th).

Wouldn't it be:

10th (13) 23rd (13) 36th (14) 50th (13) 63rd (15) Wilshire (15) Britton (15) Hefner (14) 122nd (15) Memorial

I would imagine Buddy Johnson that works here at the library would be able to help some with this...

And then there's 10th to Reno, which almost defies computation.

And there are named streets interpolated here and there: Park Place, Eubanks, Hill, Binkley.

Then there's this: On the southside (beyond about 29th), the first block west of Pennsylvania is 2100, but the first block east of Penn is 1600.

Like I said, consistently inconsistent. (Advantage: Tulsa, which is 10 N/S and 16 E/W pretty much everywhere.)

I would imagine Buddy Johnson that works here at the library would be able to help some with this...
Doubtless that's so ... Larry (Buddy) Johnson is quite an expert on Oklahoma City history, one of the very best.

Ever since learning of access to the Oklahoman's archives, I figured I'd add what I've uncovered so far, after a few hours spaced over a couple of days. I've yet to nose around at the downtown library...

County Line is obvious. I've yet to look when it was named as such.

Council Road would be named after Council Grove (learned this here, I think)

Rockwell Avenue received its present name thanks to Rockwell-Standard Industries in April of 1963, replacing "West Avenue" (named as such "for as long as anyone could remember"), which was apparently often confused with Western and what is now known as

MacArthur Blvd. (also "Ave."), which was known as "West End Avenue" until after WWII (or the early-ish forties or so), when it was indeed named after the general.

To my knowledge, all of these streets received their present names when they were moreso recognized as Bethany roads that ran through OKC a bit.

Kelley was once "High Street". Research pending.

Memorial seems to get its name from Memorial Park Cemetary (references to the "Memorial Park Road" abound).


Incidentally, N.W. Expressway (then as sometimes today "Highway") opened in late September of 1947 from NW 53rd and May to US 81 two miles south of Okarche.

I've always been curious about why Edmond (or OKC) decided to vary the spelling of Kelley/Kelly. Seems rather silly. If you are going to differentiate, at least make it a different word.

MWC streets are interesting. Especially the original mile that has everything in alphabetical order.

And named after aircraft manufacturers.



Who is Robinson Ave. named after?

Smokie.

Smokie.
That works for me! :dizzy:

The first section-line road east of Santa Fe, which is indeed Kelley north of the river, is High Avenue south of the river.

yep... and the same section line is telephone road in moore. -M

And isn't it that in Moore, some numbered streets go back and forth?

Like SW 119th is also NW something or other in Moore and then becomes something else in Norman or something...?

Crazy stuff...

streets in moore, like okc, have numbered streets running east/west and named streets running north/south. however, moore's numbering system does not coincide with okc's. therefore s. 104th okc is the same thing as n. 27th in moore. s. 119th, okc is n. 12th in moore and s. 134th is the same as s. 4th... note the direction change there as 134th/4th is south of moore's main street.

norman's numbered streets run north/south and named streets run east/west. i'd suspect that this has something to do with the oldest parts of town being aligned with the railroad on a se/nw bias instead of on a grid. therefore w. 60th, norman is equivalent to western, okc. e. 12th is the same as sooner road. there are some exceptions such as porter which is the same as sunnylane.

here's where it gets fun... s. 149th, okc is s. 19th, moore is stella rd, norman.

-M

It's "Smokey".

here's what i've found on kelley ave... below is a section of map from 1909. note the plat that is owned by 'm.j. kelley'. this section of land is modern-day 50th to the north, 36th on the south, santa fe on the west and kelley on the east. the avenue is probably named after him. -M

http://members.cox.net/magnvs/pics/kelley.jpg

Neat! Where's the map from?

When doing research on Portland Avenue yesterday (something I haven't completed), it was mildly amusing to read of country estates at 44th and Portland.

actually, this comes from ohs' online archives which you graciously linked before. thanks for that, btw... the maps are really cool.

here's a direct link (http://okhistory.cuadra.com/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?!28repos=B.ARCHIVE&starhost=linuxcp19376&file=Maps-OHS/CTPMAP.OKC.0014.pdf&mime=application/pdf&expire=1217007526&ip=&starid=okpublic!29/Maps-OHS/CTPMAP.OKC.0014.pdf)
(don't know if this link will expire or not... hope it works!)

-M

Ah, of course. I must have passed over that. I was mainly looking for maps from the 1930s and on.

Neat! Where's the map from?

When doing research on Portland Avenue yesterday (something I haven't completed), it was mildly amusing to read of country estates at 44th and Portland.

Is that North or South 44th? Where did you get your research?

this was in the oklahoman last week... -M (caps not mine, honest)

How did Telephone Road get its name? Call around
By Ann DeFrange
Staff Writer

We ought not ever to stop wondering about things, shouldn't avoid looking around and saying to ourselves — or others — what's that? Why is that there? Who did that and when did they do it?

While you're driving down Telephone Road, in the vicinity of Moore, driving and talking on your mobile phone, did you ever wonder how it was named?

Bill Day, who lives in far south Oklahoma City, close enough to reach over and give the city of Moore a nudge with an elbow or a pat on the back, adds a bit to that story, which has become Oklahoma County folklore.

Telephone Road, which stretches along the edge of Moore, at times becoming a running partner with Interstate 35, makes an even longer stretch, Day says.

He says he called around and asked folks he thought were knowledgeable about the road's name, but none had knowledge to share. So here's his version, as the venerable octogenarian recalls it from his lifetime.

"There may be a few old-timers who lived at the time when this ... road was only a dirt section line that ran from Moore to Norman.

This had an interurban line parallel to it with street cars that carried passengers from Norman to Oklahoma City ... to El Reno, Guthrie and other places.”

But the important element wasn't the road or the rails. It was a line of tall telephone poles holding multiple wires used by a telephone provider to tie together a number of growing communities.

The service, Day says, and the long line of poles, began around Houston, followed the path the interstate took later through Ardmore, Purcell, Norman and Moore, down South High Street in Oklahoma City, Guthrie, through Kansas and into Nebraska.

The poles have moved into history, along with the street cars.

Part of Day's memories include the line crews that maintained the interstate pole parade during damaging storms.

Don't just wonder. Ask.

Telephone Road was a dirt road when we moved south of Moore in 1951. It wasn't called Telephone Road where we were though because we were south of what is now Moore's south 19th Street. It was just a county road and there were no signs. There were 2 bridges just south of 19th. The one nearest to 19th was an old stone and concrete bridge. The one just south of it was out of wood timbers and very short. Both were narrow. The road flooded usually when it rained and often took a tractor to pull the cars out of the mud.

A small refinery was built a year or so after we moved there and the road was graveled to make it all weather for the trucks.

Later it was called Telephone Road - probably after Moore annexed the area in the early to mid 1960's. I thought it was ironic that we lived on Telephone Road and yet had no telephone service until about 1962 or so.

In Norman it is 36th Avenue NW.

did the cemetery on 34th & telephone exist in '51? -M

Yes, it was there in 1951. It is an old cemetery. My understanding is that the land was donated by the Smith family who owned (maybe still own) Ira's Tire Shop. I think the tire shop is still there on South Hudson in Oklahoma City.

I think the cemetery dates from before statehood and maybe before the turn of the century. The Moore Cemetery is very old as well.

The first section-line road east of Santa Fe, which is indeed Kelley north of the river, is High Avenue south of the river.

High Avenue goes as far north as NE 6th St.

Flash Earth ...satellite and aerial imagery of the Earth in Flash (http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=35.473812&lon=-97.494535&z=17.6&r=0&src=msl)

And the funny thing is, Kelley Avenue is just a little to the west of High, misaligned with its original N/S route.

Also I noticed just now that Kelley Avenue does exist between SE Grand Boulevard and SE 32nd St.

Same deal with Sunnylane/Coltrane: Sunnylane actually makes it to NE 4th, then picks up again a few hundred feet to the west and heads for 10th. Coltrane starts around NE 16th.

Oh, well, if it were a perfect grid we'd all be bored to death.