New York might have Broadway, and of course, Los Angeles has Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards. But Houston has its own long list of street names that roll off your tongue, inspiring intrigue and pride.
But have you ever wondered where some of our streets got their names? I stumbled across a book at one of our branches that jumped off the shelf at me: Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names by Marks Hinton.
HCPL bought this book way back in 2008, so it has been around for a while, but then again, so have our streets, and the origin stories haven't changed. Here are just a few of my favorites.
ALLEN PARKWAY
As you might have guessed, many of our streets were named after early settlers of the area. I guess you could say these were Houston’s Founding Fathers. In 1836, a couple of New York real estate speculators, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, bought half a league (about 2,200 acres) of land on Buffalo Bayou, laid out a town, and the rest is history. Yes, it's true, our fair city was founded by New York real estate men. I like to think of it that they were fleeing New York in search of greatness and found a utopia along the bayou.
WESTHEIMER
Michael Louis Westheimer was one of our many German settlers whose names adorn the streets we drive and helped make Houston what it is today. Some other prominent German immigrants who still have their names on our maps include Henry Kuykendahl, Adam Klein, Adolf Stuebner, and Charles Bammel. Westheimer arrived in 1859 and had his hand in a few different businesses, from flour to hay. He even started a school for his 16 children, not all by birth! His wife Bettie had immigrated with him and together, they would eventually have eight of their own children, plus three orphans, and five nephews. The school he built sat where Lamar High School is today.
KIRBY
John Henry Kirby (aka The Father of Industrial Texas) owned the two largest lumber mills in East Texas at one time. He also co-founded the American Anti-Klan Association to force the Ku Klux Klan to disband. The Kirby mansion had beautiful gardens, baroque water parterres and an indoor swimming pool. He was also one of the first Houstonians to own an automobile. So I guess you kind of had to name a street after him!
CHIMNEY ROCK
You could drive up and down this road all day and never see a rock that looked like a chimney. The truth is, there never was one. I tried to find any reference to an actual rock formation in the area that looked like a chimney, but it appears that it is just a great-sounding name. William Giddings Farrington developed the Tanglewood area in the 1930s, and he gave the streets names like Huckleberry, Sugar Hill, and Candlewood just because of their picturesque quality. Apparently, his marketing strategy worked as this area has been the home to mega-pastors, rock stars, and even presidents.
STELLA LINK
Despite the rumors, there was no nepotism here, and Mr. Link did not name the street after his daughter. This stretch of road ran alongside the railroad tracks that stretched from Bellaire to Stella, thus “linking” them together. In fact, railroad lines account for a large number of Houston street names. Just combine two destinations with a hyphen and you've got a street name. (Almeda-Genoa, Alief-Clodine, Dairy-Ashford, Fairbanks-North Houston, Hastings-Friendswood - Just to name a few!)
BUFFALO SPEEDWAY
Unfortunately, there is no definitive story on the origin of this name, but there are a few entertaining theories. My favorite says that a long strip of concrete once existed next to where the road now lies. And it is on this stretch of smooth concrete that some of our earliest car enthusiasts would race their hot rods. That explains the "Speedway" part, but the "Buffalo" remains a mystery.
T.C. JESTER
This street was named after a prominent Baptist Pastor who also served as a member of the Houston City Planning Commission in the 1940s. We have him to thank for the widening of some of Houston’s roads to accommodate the upswing in automobile use. This might seem like an unlikely combination, pastor and road planner, but it makes sense when you think about how many times the Lord is called upon by Houstonians stuck in traffic.
TELEPHONE
There was a trail alongside the first telephone lines connecting Houston to Galveston, and when the workers were erecting the poles, their wagons left tracks. These tracks eventually became a road named after the telephone lines it paralleled.
OLD SPANISH TRAIL
This has to be one of my favorite stories. I had hopes that this might have been the documented route of some of the first Europeans to cross Texas; perhaps one could drive where Alonso Álvarez de Pineda or Francisco Vásquez de Coronado once walked. But no, the name "Old Spanish Trail" was just a marketing gimmick to try and get funding for the first southern transcontinental highway. The story around this is really interesting and too complex to go into here, but The Texas Transportation Museum has a complete history on its website that you should read.
The long and the short of it is that Houston has a past as big and complex as the city itself, filled with captivating stories and unforgettable characters. Here are just a few titles to help you explore our great city's past, and some things to think about while you travel our many named streets.
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