Historic Houston Roads

[FIREhat]

Probably the most frequently changed street name in this whole area, maybe state, is in Southside Place. The one-block street that runs along the west side of what is commonly called Fire Truck Park has a new name every year. For a long time it was called Childs St. but I don't know what it was originally. As of a few years ago the city began auctioning off annual naming rights to the street to raise funds for the park. The sister one-block street on the other side of the park is called Lew Hill, named after a long-time resident of Southside who was fire chief, fire marshall, and city council member at one time or another. There is also a hill on Lew Hill that is rumored to contain some of the detritus from the original Southside Place pool, which was fed by an artesian spring.

Someone also mentioned Holcombe in a reply above. Holcombe and Bellaire change names at Buffalo Speedway according to the most prominent signage, but if you look at teh side streets you'll notice that the West U street signs on the north side continue to say Bellaire all the way to Kirby. The north half of the street between Buffalo and Kirby is in West U and retains the old name of Bellaire Blvd. while the south side is in Houston and was renamed Holcombe with the rest of the street going eastward.

Edited May 23, 2008 by FIREhat

[FIREhat]

I'll also add that a great place for people interested in street name changes is Baytown. Because Baytown was formed by the merger of three other cities a lot of the street names have changed or become muddled. An example is Market Street still having curb terrazo markers saying Pelly Rd..

Adding to the confusion is the ever-expanding Exxon refinery that has bought up quite a bit of land as buffer. Whole neighborhoods are now on plant property and the streets are more or less intact. Baytown Ave. and San Jacinto Ave. are two of the older examples while Aves. J and K are more recently acquired. The streets are mostly still there and either used by the refinery or, in some cases, still a few holdout homeowners.

Also in Baytown, Eugenio Santana was once Cedar, M.L. Wismer was formerly South Main Extension, and there are dozens of abandoned streets in the former Brownwood neighborhood that is now the Baytown Nature Center.

[Croberts]

It's Bray's Bayou, N & S Braeswood Blvds., Braeswood Place, Braes Blvd. Water gets a y and stone gets an e. However, I'm not sure why.

You mean water and concrete.

Subdivisions often get romantic names, and automobile oriented street names are strongly influenced by subdivision names. It makes sense that when the subdivision precedes or is built at the same time as the street that they would influence the street names. My guess is that some subdivider was mystified by the bray spelling, and it reminded him of the scottish brae.

[rsb320]

No, I meant the opposite of water. You know - hard stuff.

Interesting take on the Scotish Brae thing.

[plumber2]

I think I've stated this once before on another thread, but in my old neighborhood, Westheimer Gardens, Richmond Ave. was originally the present Fairdale. The present Richmond Ave was Portsmith, Beverly Hill was Norfolk, Fountain View was Ulrich, and Chimney Rock was Avenue D. These changes occured over time from the late '50s to the early 60's. All of this is probably of little interest to current day folks.

[NenaE]

All of this is probably of little interest to current day folks.

I am very interested in the old street names. Bye the way,

Can anyone tell me why there are 3 locations for N. MacGregor Way. Strange how one is located in Idylwood. (I just flew Google Earth to all 3).

Thought I'd throw that out there again.

[capt. kirk]

Many old Houston city maps have Breen Road listed as Mulberry Street. Was the named changed, possibly around 1965 or 66? Why was the name of the road changed?

I know many other roads in Houston had names changed - South Park to MLK, ?? to Sgt. Macario, even T. C. Jester was originally called White Oak Drive.

Sometimes pieces of roads were absorbed into longer roads when the extensions were built. Antoine took over a short street called Oxbow, T.C. Jester took over a street called Telford. T. C. Jester took over Leroy Street. etc. any other examples? probably many!

SGT MACARIO GARCIA USED TO BE 69TH STREET GOING NORTH AND WAYSIDE DRIVE COMING BACK SOUTH.

[capt. kirk]

I just thought of another road that was covered up to make way for an extension - Eldridge Parkway north of 1960 makes a bend just south of Cypress North Houston Road. This curved section was formerly a street called Susquannah (not sure of spelling).

Another obscure one was when the Antoine extension was built from 290 to Hempstead Road, it went over the top of a tiny street called either March or May Street. April Street still exists a couple blocks down.

Does anyone know why Ora Street was closed? It's a short street near Dacoma and Hempstead. I've seen other funny things with sections of streets barricaded.

Wow that was great about all those streets. Here's another good bit of trivia - the Gulf Freeway was never a "full freeway" until the 70s. Highways with crossovers are not freeways.

I have some web sites of abandoned highways, bridges and "lost" highways if anyone might be interested. I have also been thinking about taking pictures of abandoned streets in the Houston area if there was any interest - I know of at least a dozen places where the concrete remains from old roadways - North Houston Rosslyn, Perry Road, FM 529 just to name some.

i dont know if you will come back to this but yes i'm interested..........my email is buffman656565@yahoo.com, thanx gary

[capt. kirk]

I believe that used to be 69th St. (running one-way parallel to Wayside).

If Will Clayton had retained the name "Jet Era Blvd." perhaps it could now could have been renamed "Regional Jet Era Blvd."

yes, 69th was before garcia...that street and wayside originally were two way streets going north and south. sometime in the late 50's or early 60's they made 69th one way going north and wayside one way going south. garcia i believe was a vietnam veteran with lots of medals from the area'

[NenaE]

Yeah, I knew them as 69th and wayside, nice to see that they are honoring veterans in that way.

Guess no one knows why N. MacGregor Way (in Idylwood) sits no where near the other MacGregor Roads. I'm still looking for that one.

[FilioScotia]

yes, 69th was before garcia...that street and wayside originally were two way streets going north and south. sometime in the late 50's or early 60's they made 69th one way going north and wayside one way going south. garcia i believe was a vietnam veteran with lots of medals from the area'

SSgt Macario Garcia was a highly decorated veteran of World War II. President Truman presented him the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous heroism in a battle in Germany. I think it's highly fitting for a major thoroughfare in Houston's predominantly Hispanic east end to bear his name.

Here's his story in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcario_Garcia

[gnu]

Guess no one knows why N. MacGregor Way (in Idylwood) sits no where near the other MacGregor Roads. I'm still looking for that one.

I think the original vision was to connect the two mac gregror's together running along braes bayou.

[24zulu]

Shepherd used to be called Lowell. B. A. Shepherd was the first banker in Texas. He opened a private banking operation in 1847.

West of Shepherd Dr was Boyle, Victor and Nashua. Nashua is still as is, but Boyle became Laird, and Victor became Roderick, later a part of Durham. An old map shows Nashua going north to beyond 29th. It now stops at 16th.

Durham north of 16th was not a road, so I suspect that portion was created by creating a new throughway. Nashua may have been torn up and returned to residential. This part I got from the aforementioned 1913 map of Houston, so it could be that the streets shown were planned at the time but not yet built.

Anther Heights change was Railroad St, which is now Nicholson. My grandmother lived at Waverley and 14th, and I used to love to watch the trains when they still operated along that line.

Just saw your post on Nicholson/ Railroad Street. My family lived on Nicholson since WWI, and up until we moved in 1954. It was dirt, and one way when I was a kid. We used to wave, and chase the switcher trains that came by, and they would throw us the old railroad chalk ( Huge blobbed, chunks of chalk ). We went to Heights Presbyterian Church, and ate at Sammy's Cafe on 19th. Remember ???

[NenaE]

I think the original vision was to connect the two mac gregror's together running along braes bayou.

That makes sense, with the Old Spanish Trail Highway running through the East End. The freeways hadn't chopped up the area yet.

[NenaE]

just found this street name change list from old city & street directories.

http://stevemorse.or...us/changes.html

One area is called the Elec. Co. Addition...never heard of that one before.

Edited March 29, 2010 by NenaE

[Subdude]

just found this street name change list from old city & street directories.

http://stevemorse.or...us/changes.html

One area is called the Elec. Co. Addition...never heard of that one before.

The number of changes is amazing. I never would have guessed there would have been so many. When did these all take place?

[NenaE]

The number of changes is amazing. I never would have guessed there would have been so many. When did these all take place?

There were probably several reasons for the changes, I'm guessing the biggest one would be for annexation from Houston. As we already know, German St. (in the East End) was changed to Canal due to WW II.

By the way, I found this list while googling for Brunsville Addition.

[dbigtex56]

I'm wondering how W 11th Place got its name (Google map incorrectly calls it W 11th St.). This small dead-end street runs south off Bissonett, two blocks west of Montrose.

There are no other numbered streets for miles around, let alone 1st-10th streets. There are only eight listings for properties on this street on the HCAD site, and three of them date from 1920, so I'm guessing that this is when the street was named. At that time Houston had recently undergone many street name changes to avoid confusion with existing street names (due to the annexation of Houston Heights), so it seems especially illogical to have come up with such a confusing name at this time.

Any theories?

[Ross]

Perusing the block books on the Harris County Tax Office website, it appears that Bissonet was originally 11th Street, with teh East/West streets to teh North counting down the numbers. Here's a few links:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0335.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0345.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0362.jpg

I don't have aclue as to when the change was made or why. Note that Yoakum was Chestnut St, and Bayard was Sycamore.

[dbigtex56]

Perusing the block books on the Harris County Tax Office website, it appears that Bissonet was originally 11th Street, with teh East/West streets to teh North counting down the numbers. Here's a few links:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0335.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0345.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v036/AE1997_35-36_0362.jpg

I don't have aclue as to when the change was made or why. Note that Yoakum was Chestnut St, and Bayard was Sycamore.

Ross, thanks so much.This is a bit of Houston history about which I'd never heard.

Could it be that the numbered streets were renamed so as not to be confused with the numbered streets in the Heights?

[dbigtex56]

Another find: Upas St. (which runs south from Fairview one block to Hyde Park, between Van Buren and Waugh) is called 'Underpass' on the Precinct 37 map.

Why 'Underpass", and when and why was the name shortened?

[gnu]

Another find: Upas St. (which runs south from Fairview one block to Hyde Park, between Van Buren and Waugh) is called 'Underpass' on the Precinct 37 map.

Why 'Underpass", and when and why was the name shortened?

Underpass! Ha ha!

Here is a 1905 plat of Hyde Park from the block books.

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0261.jpg

looks like Upas was originally Garfield.

a later block book page (no date) shows it as Upas

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0262.jpg

and the detail page has it mislabeled as California and then crossed out.

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0276.jpg

[dbigtex56]

Underpass! Ha ha!

Here is a 1905 plat of Hyde Park from the block books.

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0261.jpg

looks like Upas was originally Garfield.

a later block book page (no date) shows it as Upas

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0262.jpg

and the detail page has it mislabeled as California and then crossed out.

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v018/AE1997_17-18_0276.jpg

Another interesting find - thanks. Where is the home page for this info? Have Googled myself silly with no luck.

The detail page also misspells Van Buren.

Grant, Lincoln and Van Buren still exist - wonder why Garfield was replaced by a poisonous Asian tree?

upas: noun. a tall Javanese tree (Antiaris toxicaria) of the mulberry family, whose whitish bark yields a poisonous, milky juice used as an arrow poison ...

[gnu]

Harris county block books main page:

http://www.tax.co.harris.tx.us/Property/blockbooks/default.aspx

There is a Garfield street over off McCarty and Clinton.

And I know i remember seeing an old map with more "presidential" streets over there.

(There is still Fillmore and Buchanan)

Maybe it was a compromise when the two areas were annexed?

We keep these Presidents...y'all keep those....you get a poisonous tree....

[brucesw]

upas: noun. a tall Javanese tree (Antiaris toxicaria) of the mulberry family, whose whitish bark yields a poisonous, milky juice used as an arrow poison ...

Interesting - I used to live on Mulberry Street just a few blocks west, running south from Westheimer right at the curve.

[IronTiger]

It's always fascinated me that some roads in Houston are simply closed off or renamed.

Specifically, there's this one road in Cypress area: it was demolished for a bike path when the new subdivision was built in the mid-2000s.

29.956403,-95.722429

I'm sure there are others that were demolished or renamed. What do you think?

[Lloyd-TX]

One renamed Houston road comes to mind . . .

Southpark Boulevard was renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard. Can't recall the date when it was renamed, but I'm guessing sometime in the early 70's.

[Subdude]

There was a topic a while back about a long closed road - Old Main Street Loop Road.

[house567]

I believe "Outer Belt" became "MacGregor" became "Cambridge" next to Memorial Hermann Hosp in the TMC over the last decade. Am I right?

[IronTiger]

Oh hey, I just remembered I had a 1976 atlas showing Houston street names. A subdivision road in Spring Valley was obliterated for the I-10 expansion was called Bunningham Rd. (it's still on Google Maps as the frontage road title).

Jackrabbit Lane was the informal name for FM 1960.

The one I was thinking of the first post is still Horse & Hahl Road (it was just truncated).

Interestingly, within a mile, there was a private airfield (Josey Ranch...go to Cottage Cypress Road in Houston and go back to '78).