Ballou Street Renamed?


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Ballou Street Renamed?
Posted by: WayOutWardell ()
Date: September 24, 2012 10:23PM

Does anyone know in what year Ballou Street was renamed Saint Louis Avenue? A 1979 history of Logan Square says that the name changed happened when the area was annexed to Chicago in 1889, but I've seen Ballou Street mentioned as late as the 1930s.

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Re: Ballou Street Renamed?
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: September 24, 2012 10:52PM

It was changed in 1936

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~itappcnc/pipcnstreetfind.htm

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Re: Ballou Street Renamed?
Posted by: WayOutWardell ()
Date: September 25, 2012 12:18AM

Brilliant! Thanks!

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Re: Ballou Street Renamed?
Posted by: daveg ()
Date: September 25, 2012 01:56PM

Curious/interesting.... wonder *why* the name change? Family lived on St. Louis (south side) back in the 50s. First I've heard of the street name Ballou.

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Re: Ballou Street Renamed?
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: September 25, 2012 02:25PM

daveg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Curious/interesting.... wonder *why* the name
> change? Family lived on St. Louis (south side)
> back in the 50s. First I've heard of the street
> name Ballou.

daveg,
The name change may have been because:

"Fewer streets names result if only one name is used when two or more streets run, un-connected, on the same alignment."

See Gerrit E. Van Wissink's Street Name Changes, in Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee (pubished 1988)

There are more reasons, but this may apply.

In "Mitchell's real estate map of Chicago and suburbs"
Chicago, 1900-1914 | Region, 1903, sheet 3
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900/

St. Louis (3500W) is shown ending at North Avenue, and bisecting Ballou (3500W) and Hancock St. (changed to Drake Ave.,also in 1936, at 3510W). It seems then, that Ballou was very closely aligned with St. Louis.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2012 09:36PM by nordsider.

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