In South Gadsden, there are streets named for U.S. presidents.
By Danny Crownover
Back in the 1940s, there was a newly platted section on a hillside in South Gadsden, overlooking the Republic Steel Mills. It had streets and avenues named in honor of some ot the presidents of the United State.
These were Lincoln, Grant, Polk, Pierce, Garfield, Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, Van Buren and Washington.
In the adjoining section of Walnut Park there is a Washington, Wilson and Lincoln street and avenues named in honor of Henry W. Grady and William Jennings Bryan. All of which is interesting except that many streets and avenues in all sections of the city have the same names.
In fact, duplication of street names was so frequent as to bring about much confusion, so much that postmen have great difficulty in delivering mail.
Such things usually result from rapid growth and expansion in any modern city. Additions inside the corporate limits are surveyed and mapped with names being recorded without regard to any duplications in the older section.
Suburban tracts have followed the same pattern and as they are annexed, they add to the confusion of street names.
About this time, the Gadsden City Commission started studying the situation with the view of making corrections.
A survey was eventually made that went toward a proper naming of streets where duplications occur. There was an “unscrambling,” as one official put it, so there would be an orderly system that would be followed in the future.
The town had been growing so fast and so many additions were annexed in so short a time that there has been little chance to keep up with street names.
A glance at a city map shows that some street has Indian names, Tuscaloosa, Sequoya and Coosa.
In the mill village in Alabama City the New England influence is indicated by such names as Hinsdale, Cumnock, Dwight, Marston, Sandusky and Cabot.
In Goodyear Park in East Gadsden there is the Akron, Ohio, touch with such names as Litchfield, Slusser, Wolf, Wahl, Richardson, Stillman, Grant, Harpham.
In one section there are a few Spanish names, such as Vallejo. All of the trees of the surrounding forests, most of the pioneer families and cities are also represented.
The City Commission also had a surveyor at work on a plan to renumber the houses throughout the entire city. That was a job that required time, but officials eventually completed it to the satisfaction of everyone.
