Las Vegas street names – where did they come from, and why?
Las Vegas is a place of extremes. We probably have the brightest artificial light in the known universe shining from the Luxor pyramid every night – to the extent that pilots can’t fly directly over it for fear of piercing a retina. We have the tallest building between Chicago and the west coast., with the Stratosphere Tower. We have more hotel rooms per capita than – well, probably anywhere. More shows, more casinos, more restaurants in a three mile stretch of road on the strip, than most cities have in a lifetime.
We have to eventually run out of street names, right? Which is not good, because street names help you get you where you’re going.
Weird Street Names In Las Vegas
Naming streets in Las Vegas was easy – at first. Early downtown Las Vegas named streets going one direction after Nevada pioneers like Clark, Fremont and Carson. The cross streets got numbers, starting with First Street, which was just one block east of Main Street. Main Street was next to the railroad on the spot where the city began. In the original North Las Vegas the streets were mostly named after people, – simple enough.
Henderson was founded as a company town as a part of the war effort during World War Two.
The street names include Basic, which is the name of the company where the water for Basic Industries flows (now underground,) and a whole lot of mineral names: Lead, Silver, and Perlite. State names, ocean names (Atlantic and Pacific) and to top it off, Army, Navy, Major and Minor.
During an early optimistic period what is now the industrial development west of the Strip used names of stars, like Polaris, Procyon, Regulus, Capella, Sirius, Rigel, Pollux, and Aldebaran. Not bad.
Then there are the celebrity streets. You know, Joe W. Brown Drive, Frank Sinatra Drive, Dean Martin Drive, Wynn Road, Elvis Presley Street, and many that are actually minor streets but still are named after famous Las Vegas people.
There’s still a lot of building going on in Las Vegas – what are YOUR suggestions for road names?
And here are some weird street names from other cities in the state of Nevada
-Carla Rea
