Posts about Street Naming

If you're curious about these 50 avenues (actually 48 avenues, one street, and one drive), Matt Johnson created some detailed and fascinating maps showing why different state roads appear where they do.

Today, others are getting a taste of this, with WABA's annual 50 States and 13 Colonies Ride. The ride is full this year, and participants will enjoy a scenic (some say grueling) 60+ mile tour of the District.

But seeing all 50 state-named avenues doesn't mean biking them all in one day. Steve did his exploration over several days. Doing something similar would be a great way to see parts of the city you might otherwise never have visited.

Good Hope Road's role in one of the greatest tragedies in American history is understandably not celebrated today, but it is a footnote that connects today's everyday life of walking the main streets of Anacostia with a past that pre-dates the Civil War.

With methods of transportation changing from horses to street cars to personal automobiles, there were increased demands for the continual improvement of the streets and roadways.

In an August 1898 article from The Times, under "Commissioners' Orders" there is a brief note reading:

The District Commissioners issued the following orders yesterday: That Nicholas Avenue, from Stickfoot Branch to within 100 feet of the Government Hospital of the Insane, be repaired at an estimated cost of $1,300, chargeable to the appropriation for repairs of roads.

That the following work be done, chargeable to the appropriation for paving Harrison Street from the Navy Yard Bridge eastward. Relocate basin on west side of Harrison Street eighteen feet south of south rail of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, so that it will be 10 feet from rail; estimated cost, $50. Relocate basin at the intersection of the east curb of Monroe Street and south curb of Harrison Street; estimated cost, $75. Relocate basin on south side of Harrison Street 285 feet east of east curb of Monroe Street, estimated cost, $50. Relocate basin on the north side of Harrison Street opposite Fillmore Street; estimated cost, $25.

Old street names

The presidential-themed street names appeared with the planning of the Uniontown subdivision. Charles Burr writes in the 1920 records of the Columbia Historical Society:

Uniontown was between the fork created by the Upper Marborough road and the Piscataway road. To the thoroughfare eastward a part of the Marlborough road, was given the name Harrison Street and to the thoroughfare southward a part of the Piscataway road was given the name Monroe Street. The other streets of Uniontown were named in honor of the Presidents.

Uniontown was bounded by Monroe Street (Nichols Avenue, now Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue) on the west, Harrison Street (Good Hope Road) on the north, Taylor Street (16th Street) on the east, and Jefferson Street (W Street) on the south. The other streets were also named after presidents: Fillmore Street (13th Street), Pierce Street (14th Street), Adams Street (15th Street), Jackson Street (U Street), and Washington Street (V Street).

"The presidential names were changed in 1908 for use in other parts of town, and the usual numbered and alphabetical designation made Anacostia's street names consistent with the city-wide scheme," writes Thomas Cantwell in the early 1970s records of the Columbia Historical Society.

Asylum Road

The other main historic thoroughfare in Anacostia is the three and a half mile Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue that extends from Good Hope Road all the way through southeast and southwest where it ends near the Bald Eagle Recreation Center.

Construction of Asylum Road, named for the manner in which it ran past the new Government Insane Asylum, which would later come to be known as Saint Elizabeths, began in the 1850s.

The road's name was changed to Nichols Avenue in the 1870s after Henry Nichols, the superintendent of Saint Elizabeths from 1852 to 1877. The hill on which the campus sits came to be known as Asylum Hill.

"It was a lovely day, and his car went up Asylum Hill without an effort, which made him think of the old bicycle days of 40 years ago, when many of the strongest riders found it convenient to dismount when half way up the hill," wrote John Clagett Proctor in an article in The Sunday Star from the first half of the 20th century.

In January 1971, the DC Council, with the approval of neighborhood residents, passed legislation changing the name of Nichols Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. The City Council used the renaming of Nichols Avenue to petition and urge Congress to declare Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

Today's street names

On Sunday, September 27, 1908, The Washington Times ran an article under the headline, "Wouldn't It Make You Peevish to Have Street Names Changed in a Night? Congress Forgets To Heed Requests."

Since the memory of the oldest inhabitants runneth not to the contrary," the author wrote, "Anacostia has prided itself on its high sounding street names. George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, all of them were there.

"Ah, ha!" said Congress, "Here's a bunch of high-sounding statesmanlike names in use out there at Anacostia. What if they have been doing business for about sixty years and are a little shop-worn. We'll transfer them over to Mt. Pleasant, our thriving fashionable suburb, and send a bunch of letters and figures over Anacostia way to be distributed wherever there's an empty space.

Following which ukase, a benevolent ladder climber from the District building came over and tore down William Henry Harrison, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and a few others, and decorated the lamp posts 13, 17, W, X, Y, Z, or any other old letter he drew out of the bag.

The alphanumeric-named street grid in today's Anacostia can be seen in review of Volume 4 of 1927 Baist's Real Estate Atlas available for public research at the Historical Society of Washington at 801 K Street NW. Further research on the old street names both east and west of the river can be done at the Martin Luther King Library's Washingtoniana Division at 901 G Street NW and the Library of Congress.

A version of this article will run in April's East of the River.

Another place worth mentioning is Bethesda. Several of the streets in and around the central business district are named after places in Northern Virginia. Arlington Road, Clarendon Road, Del Ray Avenue, Fairfax Road, Norfolk Avenue, St. Elmo Avenue, and Woodmont Avenue all reference places on the other side of the Potomac.

The region has not one, but (at least) two neighborhoods with streets named after places or characters from Star Trek. One is near Gaithersburg, the other in Largo.

As I pointed out yesterday, College Park uses university names as a part of its alphabetical street naming system. But two other Maryland neighborhoods also use colleges to name streets. One instance is in College Gardens, near Montgomery College. The other is Glen Echo.

Takoma Park has two different street naming patterns. In the central part of Takoma Park, streets tend to be named after flowers and trees. Closer to Silver Spring, streets are named after American cities.

There are probably other places in the region with interesting naming systems. Do any of you know where else we can find them?

Several communities have independent street numbering. Just north of Silver Spring, Woodside's low numbered avenues intersect DC's 16th Street. Glenarden and Lanham also stand apart with their non-DC-based numbered streets.

In the District, east-west streets are given non-numeric names. In most cases, streets increase alphabetically with increasing distance from the Capitol. This system is repeated in certain parts of both Montgomery and Prince George's counties. The alphabetical march of streets stretches from Oxon Hill to Beltsville, admittedly with quite a few gaps.

With nothing more than an arbitrary political boundary dividing Maryland from the District, the street grid continues across the DC line unabated in many places. As a result, places like Chevy Chase and Mount Rainier see direct continuations of DC's "alphabets". So the pattern of the alphabetical progression is easy to pick out.

In Hyattsville and the neighboring communities, many of the street names are very similar to those found in DC, with the same progression of names in many cases. In both Hyattsville and Northwest DC, Hamilton is followed by Ingraham, Jefferson, Kennedy, and Longfellow.

But other neighborhoods have unique progressions. In College Park, universities lend their names—in alphabetical order—to streets. Further north, the streets of Berwyn Heights and Langley Park use Indian names. A trip up Rhode Island Avenue reveals names like Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Delaware, and Erie.

Yet, unique names aren't the only uniqueness in street naming. Capitol Heights hugs the District line. There, streets parallel to Southern Avenue increase alphabetically as distance from DC increases. But the perpendicular streets also use an alphabetical system, increasing with distance from East Capitol Street.

However, the alphabetical and numerical streets aren't the only thing that Washington bequeathed to her suburbs. Several of the state-named avenues continue into Maryland as well. Georgia Avenue in Montgomery and Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George's stretch the farthest. Both roadways keep their names all the way to the Patuxent River.

Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are all major arteries to the suburbs. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are also important links across the border. Rhode Island is discontinuous and skips around across northern Prince George's, following an old streetcar route.

Rounding out the bunch are Nevada and Kansas. Chevy Chase, Maryland is home to 2 short blocks of Nevada Avenue. And Kansas Avenue changes its name to Kansas Lane when it crosses Eastern Avenue in Takoma Park.

Author's note: The original version of this article included a map showing the numbered streets which inadvertently left out the numbered streets in Cabin John, Maryland. A revised map has now been inserted. The original can be viewed here.

In contrast to Washington, east-west streets are numbered. Since Arlington does not have quadrants, but instead has halves, most streets are identified with "north" or "south" relative to Arlington Boulevard. The directional suffix follows numbered streets, but precedes named streets. Numbered streets increase with distance from Arlington Boulevard in both directions. Accordingly, it is flanked on the north by First Street North and on the opposite side by First Street South. Numbered streets are usually "streets," but when additional streets fill in blocks, "Road" and then "Place" is used.

Named streets run north-south. Like DC, the first letter of the street name and number of syllables indicates where in the grid a street is located. The origin for the named streets is the Potomac River. The first "alphabet" is made up of one-syllable words, the second of two-syllable words, the third of three-syllable words, and the fourth is just one street: North Arizona Street. As distance from the Potomac increases, letters increase successively.

Instead of using "Place" to indicate a second street of the same letter filling in the street grid as DC does, Arlington just uses another word of the same first letter and syllables. In that regard, Danville Street could be followed by Daniel Street. A look at a progression of successive letters shows the strata of the alphabets in Arlington's street grid.

None of Washington's state-named avenues continue into Virginia, so Arlington uses a different methodology for indicating major streets. Like the street bisecting the county, major east-west roads are typically called "boulevards". Examples include Wilson and Clarendon Boulevards.

Major north-south streets are often called "drives." Examples include Walter Reed and George Mason Drives.

Many roads pre-date the addressing system of 1932, and have kept their historical names. These include "roads," highways," Spout Run Parkway, and Columbia Pike.

Today, the importance of some avenues is greater than the importance of others. This is due, in large part, to their suburban connections, not any particular naming convention.

The grand avenue, home to everything from Inaugural Parades to festivals of all sorts, is Pennsylvania Avenue. Connecting the Legislative and Executive branches, it was always meant to be the heart of Washington. In the southeast, it continues as a major roadway toward central Prince George's County, Maryland.

Similarly, Connecticut, Georgia, and New York all are major thoroughfares to outlying parts of the region. Another important street is Wisconsin Avenue, running from M Street in Georgetown to the Beltway north of Bethesda; it was an important road long before the name was applied. As late as 1903, it was still called the Georgetown and Rockville Pike. This historic name is the basis for two streets in suburban Montgomery County: Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike, the straightened version.

Some feel that certain states got short shrift. Tiny Delaware has a fractured, relatively unimportant street. However, the main reason that it is less important today is because of its strategic importance as a transportation corridor. To the north, Amtrak, MARC, and Metro's Red Line trains use Delaware Avenue to enter the L'Enfant City. Similarly, Maryland and Virginia Avenues in Southwest and Southeast now have above-grade railway embankments carrying trains along streets intended to be grand public avenues.

But street-naming doesn't have anything to do with importance to the Revolution or the prestige of any one state, at least not directly. State names were assigned to avenues based on their geographic location within the United States.

For that reason, one found Georgia Avenue in the southernmost portion of the city. Running from what is now Fort McNair across the southern side of Capitol Hill, we know it today as Potomac Avenue. Near the northern edge of the city, the avenue named after the then-northernmost state, New Hampshire, passed through Washington and Dupont Circles, just as it does today.

Vermont joined the union in 1791 as the fourteenth state, while Kentucky joined in 1792. It was during these years that Washington was being laid out. For that reason, they both received places within the system. Tennessee gained statehood in 1796, and its avenue became the first glaring error. After all, Tennessee forms the southern boundary of Kentucky, yet Kentucky Avenue lies entirely south of Tennessee Avenue.

By the time Congress first met here in 1800, there were three diagonal avenues left to be named. Ohio and Indiana fit into the system well enough, but Louisiana was sorely out of place.

With the first nineteen states represented in the city, Washington ran out of avenues. Maps from the 1800s available on the Library of Congress' website show that Maine and Missouri had short avenues within the bounds of the Mall, but it is unclear exactly how all the new states were represented as they came on board.

In 1890, Boundary Street was renamed after the twenty-seventh state, Florida. Despite being farther south than any other state (it would remain so until 1959), it got the street forming the northern boundary of the city.

Yet by the time the twentieth century got going, Washington was expanding into the hills and dales above the Fall Line. As the street grid expanded, new avenues were added, and old ones obliterated. Around 1914, the citizens of Brightwood managed to get Brightwood Avenue renamed after Georgia. They had hoped to curry favor with senator Augustus Bacon, but he promptly died, and never had a chance to affect the fortunes of these suburban pioneers. The construction of the Federal Triangle complex in the 1930s eliminated Ohio's avenue and shortened what had been Louisiana Avenue. Louisiana's name itself had moved a few blocks east to a new street constructed as part of the changes brought by Union Station and Columbus Circle in 1907.

Today, one can still see some geographic order to the state-named avenues. However, much of that is due to the age of certain regions. After all, New England hasn't had a new state since number twenty-three, Maine, joined in 1820. For the most part, states on the East Coast can be found downtown. Alaska Avenue is the northernmost avenue (in its entirety). Mississippi, which is at least in the south, is the southernmost state-named avenue. But the similarities largely end there.

Crossposted at Track Twenty-Nine.

North of Georgetown and Boundary Street (Florida Avenue), the area formerly known as Washington County, DC began to develop. For the most part, developers extended the grid as the most efficient way expand the growing city. Some areas, notably Petworth, recreated the principles of the L'Enfant plan, with avenues and circles intersecting the grid. In other places, geography made a rectilinear grid impractical.

As the city expanded, so did the system of naming streets. In the L'Enfant city, the highest lettered street was W Street (running between Ninth and Fifteenth Streets NW). Unlike numbers, the alphabet is not infinitely expandable. In order to continue to have an alphabetical progression of streets, the alphabet starts over. Only "streets" are subject to the convention. Avenues, roads, drives, and other minor streets do not conform to the alphabetical progression. "Places," on the other hand, usually appear one block north of the correspondingly lettered street and often share the same first letter.

After the first alphabet runs out of letters, street names restart alphabetically with two-syllable names. "Adams Street" follows "W Street." Once the second alphabet is exhausted, the system repeats with words of three syllables. "Webster Street" is followed by the third alphabet's "Allison Street." However, the Fourth Alphabet does not use words of four syllables. Instead, the Fourth Alphabet, only present in the Northwest and largest quadrant, uses the names of plants in increasing alphabetical order. Thus "Aspen" follows "Whittier."

Typically, each of the other alphabets uses the same letters used by the First Alphabet (A-W, skipping J). However, there are some exceptions. The Second Alphabet has Yuma Street, there's a Jefferson Street in the Third Alphabet, and Xenia Street appears in Southeast. East-west streets in the District are often discontinuous due to obstructions. Sometimes the street continues with the same name on the other side, and sometimes it changes to a different name. Shepherd Street NW, for instance, is split by Piney Branch Park between Fourteenth and Sixteenth Streets, but keeps the same name on both sides. However, on the other side of Rock Creek Park, in Upper Northwest, the two-syllable "S" street name is Sedgwick. Still, a look at the first letter of streets in the District easily shows the strata of the alphabets.

The highest numbered street in the District is 63rd Street in the Capitol Heights section of Northeast. Southeast's nearby 58th Street is that quadrant's highest numbered street. In Northwest the ridges and valleys of the Potomac Valley cause numbered streets (and the grid) to give up the ghost at 52nd Street. And tiny Southwest sees its highest number with 23rd Street south of the Lincoln Memorial.

Of course, without its state-named avenues, Washington would have a far less complex street system. But the avenues don't only add complexity, they also close the streetscape, provide vistas to monumental buildings, and create squares, plazas, and parks throughout the city. These famous streets are important streets in the city, but they don't conform to the system, and as a result are more difficult to find.

Except for California Street and Ohio Drive, all the states have avenues named after them. The shortest of the avenues is Indiana Avenue, found near Judiciary Square and the Archives. It stretches less than half a mile, exclusively in Northwest. While no state-named avenue passes through all four quadrants, the longest, Massachusetts Avenue, passes through three. It stretches from border to border across the District, although it lacks a bridge over the Anacostia, and continues northward into Montgomery County, Maryland.

Crossposted at Track Twenty-Nine.