Alphabetically-ordered street names

[DandyDan]

Minneapolis and its suburbs to the west go through about three iterations of the alphabet. The most interesting choices are for the "X" streets (Xylon and Ximines being my favorites).

That's not the only alphabetical setup in the Twin Cities area.  My old hometown of Cottage Grove followed what unincorporated Washington County does and each mile interval going eastward begins with the next letter of the alphabet, only for some reason, the west edge of Cottage Grove is Geneva Avenue.  I know as a kid, I tried figuring out where it would begin, and it was somewhere in Dakota County.

Speaking of Dakota County, they have their own alphabetical system.  Inver Grove Heights, technically another old hometown, but I was a baby then, so it shouldn't really count, follows it.  Akron Avenue, which goes through Inver Grove, is the dividing line and it goes upward both ways from there east and west. 

Many rural counties have an alphabetical setup, which you don't really notice since the roads are a mile apart.

Here in Nebraska, I've noticed a disproportionate number of cities with street names that are simply a letter and they are always in sequence, which would be odd if they weren't.

[agentsteel53]

I just noticed a series of north-south roads in Bellingham, WA:

Cornwall, Dean, Ellis, Franklin, Grant, Humboldt, Iron, James, King, Lincoln, Moore, Nevada, Orleans, Pacific, Queen, Racine, St. Paul, Toledo, Undine, Verona, Valencia, Woburn, Xenia, Yew

no A, B, or Z, and somehow there are two V's, the first of which is located 0.6 blocks or so east of U, and the second a full block east of the first.  I dunno what happened there; maybe two independently surveyed grids were unified and that is where the error was absorbed?

[roadman]

Boston (MA) has an alphabetical series in the Back Bay, starting with Arlington Street and ending with Hereford Street.

[SidS1045]

Boston (MA) has an alphabetical series in the Back Bay, starting with Arlington Street and ending with Hereford Street.

See the 13th post on this thread.  You left out Ipswitch, Jersey and Kilmarnock.

[Truvelo]

This suburb of London has a small area of alphabet streets.

[NWI_Irish96]

In St. Joseph Co. Indiana, major county roads, at one-mile intervals, are in alphabetic order, starting at the north and east edges of the county. As a bonus, east-west roads are named for historical figures and north south roads for trees. (That gets the county mention in the "themed" road names thread as well.)

Marshall County continues the St. Joseph County names for the North-South roads.  Marshall County also uses alphanumeric names for the East-West roads.  Roads on the exact mile are numbered for their distance from the north county line (1st Road = 1 mile, 2nd road = 2 miles, etc.).  Roads not on the exact mile get a letter suffix based on the nearest 1/4 mile, with A = 1/4 mile, B = 1/2 mile, C = 3/4 mile.  So 9B Road is 9 1/2 miles from the county line.

[spooky]

Boston (MA) has an alphabetical series in the Back Bay, starting with Arlington Street and ending with Hereford Street.

See the 13th post on this thread.  You left out Ipswitch, Jersey and Kilmarnock.

Arlington through Hereford are parallel streets in sequence from east to west. The next parallel street after Hereford is Mass Ave. One would have to be relatively imaginative to consider Ipswich, Jersey and Kilmarnock as a continuation of the pattern.

[deathtopumpkins]

I would think Ipswich, Jersey, and Kilmarnock might have been named to go along with Arlington-Hereford, but they don't logically continue the pattern, no. Going west down Boylston/Newbury/CommAve/Marlborough/Beacon, after Hereford you hit Mass Ave, then the grid pretty much ends and you hit Charlesgate then Kenmore Square. Boylston hits Ipswich twice (it's a loop) on each side of the Charlesgate and Fenway, followed by Jersey and Kilmarnock. But it is a different neighborhood (Fenway/Kenmore instead of Back Bay) and the streets aren't even in a continuous grid.

[apeman33]

Alphabetical street names are pretty common.  See Tulsa, Oklahoma, for another example (X is Xanthus, for those who are interested).  Labette County, Kansas, has named their north-south rural roads in alphabetical order, from Allen to York.

A lot of counties in Kansas have done that. Some name them after other counties (filling in with other words if no county starts with said letter). That's Labette County's pattern (Allen, Brown, Clark, Douglas, Ford...). Neosho County does the same thing. I think both use "Queen" in place of the "Q" county that doesn't exist.

Bourbon County's E-W roads are alphabetical starting at the Crawford County line and going north. The original idea was for the names to have a historic significance but in actuality only a few of them do.

The main roads are Arrowhead, Birch, Calvary, Deer, Eagle, Fern, Grand, Hackberry, Indian, Jayhawk, Kansas, Limestone, Maple, Native, Osage, Poplar, Quail, Range, Soldier, Tomahawk, Unique, Valley, Wagon, Xavier, Yale, and Zinc. Any roads in between are named with the first letter of the major road south of them. The first one is Drywood, which comes between Deer and Eagle.

Logan County names the E-W roads but there are more than 26 major roads, so the 27th is an AA road (Apache Acre) on up to the 32nd road, FF (Fort Fox).

[mtantillo]

The Nassau Shores neighborhood of Massapequa, NY (where I grew up) has a series of "___water" streets near the bay.  Atwater, Brightwater, Clearwater, Deepwater, Edgewater, Fairwater, Greatwater, Highwater, (then they start skipping but without going out of alphabetical order) Leewater, Nearwater, Ripplewater, Stillwater, Tidewater, and Waterview.

[SidS1045]

Boston (MA) has an alphabetical series in the Back Bay, starting with Arlington Street and ending with Hereford Street.

See the 13th post on this thread.  You left out Ipswitch, Jersey and Kilmarnock.

Arlington through Hereford are parallel streets in sequence from east to west. The next parallel street after Hereford is Mass Ave. One would have to be relatively imaginative to consider Ipswich, Jersey and Kilmarnock as a continuation of the pattern.

Not at all.  Long before Mass Ave. existed, those three streets were a perfect continuation of the pattern.  They've been displaced over the years, but if you go back long enough they were in perfect sequence, alphabetically and geographically.

[Kacie Jane]

I just noticed a series of north-south roads in Bellingham, WA:

Cornwall, Dean, Ellis, Franklin, Grant, Humboldt, Iron, James, King, Lincoln, Moore, Nevada, Orleans, Pacific, Queen, Racine, St. Paul, Toledo, Undine, Verona, Valencia, Woburn, Xenia, Yew

no A, B, or Z, and somehow there are two V's, the first of which is located 0.6 blocks or so east of U, and the second a full block east of the first.  I dunno what happened there; maybe two independently surveyed grids were unified and that is where the error was absorbed?

I'm not up on the relevant history, but I mentioned this and three other sequences in Bellingham in an older thread.

[Mr Downtown]

My sister's Arlington, Texas, neighborhood features Hibiscus, Iberis, Juniper, Kalmia, Lemon, Myrtle, and Nightshade, which intersect with Osage, Red Birch, Smoke Tree, Tamarack, Umbrella Pine, and Viburnum.  This scheme appears to connect to nothing before or after, alphabetically.

[ChoralScholar]

In Russellville, Arkansas, streets that are East of AR-7 (Arkansas Ave.) are named, in alphabetical order for cities that are East of the Mississippi river, and the opposite is true for streets that are West of AR-7.

East:
Arkansas
Boston
Cleveland
Detroit
Erie
Frankfort
Greenwich
Hampton
Ithaca
Jackson
Knoxville
Louisville
Mobile
Nashville
Oswego
Pittsburgh
etc.

West:
Arkansas
Boulder
Commerce
Denver
El Paso
Fargo
Glenwood
Houston
Independence
Jonesboro
Keokuk
etc

[sp_redelectric]

In Portland's Alphabet District:  Alder, Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby, Raleigh, Savier, Thurman, Upshur, Vaughn, Wilson, Roosevelt (in place of X), York, Reed (in place of Z)

In McMinnville, Oregon:  Adams, Baker, Cowls, Davis, Evans, Ford, Galloway, Hembree, Irvine, Johnson, Kirby, Logan, Macy, Newby, Oak.  Going the other way from downtown, Alder, Birch, Cedar, Yamhill (in place of D), Elm.

Vancouver, Washington simply has C Street through Z Street.  A Street is Main Street, B Street is Broadway.  Going the other direction, Washington Street (in place of B), Columbia Street, Daniels Street, Esther Street, Franklin, Grant, Harney, (skips I and J) Kauffman Avenue, then Markle Avenue and Lincoln Avenue in reverse order.

In Hillsboro:  Adams, Bailey, Connell, Dennis, Ebbets, Freeman

In Cornelius:  Alpine, Beech, Cherry, Dogwood, Elder, Fawn, Ginger, Heather, Ivy, Jasper, Linden, Magnolia, Nectarine, Oleander, Palmetto.  Going the other way, Adair, Barlow, Clark, Davis, E is skipped (the Oregon Electric Railway would fit here in the grid), Fremont, Gray, Holladay, Irvine, Joseph, Kamaikan, Lambert.

In Forest Grove:  Ash, Birch, Cedar, Douglas, Elm, Filbert, (G is skipped) Hawthorne, Inglewood, Juniper, Kingwood, Larch, Madrona, Maple (M is repeated, N is omitted) Poplar

Canby:  Aspen, Birch, Cedar, Douglas, Elm, Fir, Grant, Holly, Ivy, Juniper, Knott, Locust, Lupine (L is repeated), Manzanita, Maple (M is repeated, N is omitted) Oak, Pine, (Q is omitted, in the street grid this would be occupied by the Crown-Zellerbach Logging Road which is now a bike trail), Redwood

[CentralCAroadgeek]

It seems to me that Matt Groening used those Portland streets as inspiration for naming characters on The Simpsons. I see Flanders, Lovejoy, and Quimby in there...

[luokou]

It seems to me that Matt Groening used those Portland streets as inspiration for naming characters on The Simpsons. I see Flanders, Lovejoy, and Quimby in there...

Only because he was born in Oregon. Plus, he's from Beaverton (which is my hometown as well!)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Matt-Groening-Reveals-the-Location-of-the-Real-Springfield.html