Page 30 - Scene Magazine 42-06 June 2017

Scene In Time
What’s in a Name: Letters and Numbers
BY ELIZABETH NEUMEYER
This is a reprint of an article I did for Scene several years ago as I am busy writing the history of KCC. When I first came to this area, I was puzzled by road
names like N Drive North, which was also called Gorsline road. I discovered that this N Drive North/N Drive South along with 8 Mile, 9 Mile and so on in Calhoun County dated from the spring of 1946. Two articles in the Enquirer and News (April 28, 1946, p. 13 and May 8, 1946, p. 6) explained the system.
The move was requested by Consumers Power with the support of the County Road Commission. Consumers Power agreed to pay for new signs. The county health department, rural fire departments, doctors (who then actually made house calls), and merchants making deliveries all backed this change. The idea was to make it easier to find homes based on a uniform grid system. As the Enquirer put it, it would make “any spot in the county easy to find.” Carl Williams, Sheridan Township supervisor, said this system was being adopted nation-wide.
Caspar Uldricks , then Bedford township supervisor and chair of the county board of commissioners, said his wife Alice was busy all morning answering the telephone as constituents called in their complaints. Mr. Uldricks said, “I suppose the county road commission has the authority, but it doesn’t make sense to put up signs reading Four and One-Half Mile road on Waubascon road, even if the power company is providing them.” What
added further irritation was Consumers also renumbering the houses in higher five unit digits (20000) instead of the lower hundreds that were customary.
In Pennfield township, Mrs. Verne Greenman, speaking for her husband who was the township supervisor, said that “Many people who are used to referring to Joy road, Marcum road, McAllister road, Gorsline road, and Wheatfield road would not take to the new names.” She further explained that these names were historic from names of older settlers and people were used to using Marcum road, not Twelve Mile road. To answer this, county commissioners said that the, “Old names can be continued wherever desired and that even the old road signs can be left standing alongside the new markers.”
In earlier times, travel distances were not that great and there was no coordinated road system. It was not until 1893 that the Michigan Legislature passed the County Road law, which encouraged, not required, counties to establish a county road commission. People often paid their road tax by working on the local roads for a set period of time. There was no consistency. Interestingly enough, good roads in terms of logical grids and good construction were encouraged by the popularity of bicycling. Indeed the Michigan State Highway Department was established in 1905 partly as a result of pressure from bicyclists who also formed the Good Roads Movement. In 1913 W. K. Hatt, head of the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue in Indiana started studies and conferences to meet the needs of county surveyors and city engineers. This was the origin of the Road School, which just
had its 103rd conference this year. I did not find a direct connection but the grid chosen by the County Road Commission was from several alternatives designed by this Purdue school.
Here is how the system was explained in the local newspaper. Parallel east and west roads were named by letter starting with a central location which was A Drive North, B Drive North, and so on, till you got to W Drive North. The same was true in the other direction with A Drive South, B Drive South, till one got to W Drive South. No XYZ roads were used. Baseline road at the northern end of the county was left alone because it follows the historic survey established under the Land Ordinance of 1785. To change it, other counties needed to agree and this was unlikely. The mile roads started with Half-Mile road at the western end of the county and on to Twenty-Nine and a Half Mile road at the eastern end.
This plan had exceptions. Any major trunk line was not renamed. Then “new” U.S. 12 (now Columbia) and M 60 remained. There were also roads that did not conform very well. After all they were trying to fit this numeral-letter system onto older roads. Verona road continued to be Verona road. The Old Bellevue road was unchanged as well as Partello road, Oak Grove road and Homer road.
B Drive South is a good example of a road that had and still has several names. In Battle Creek Township, it is called Beckley even today. If you look at an old map, it is also called Spaulding road in Emmett Township or South Emmett road and/or Ceresco road. The Enquirer confidently stated that under the new plan, the “entire stretch” becomes B Drive North. Spaulding and Beckley were early settlers on these routes and Beckley, in particular, still endures today. So there is a grid but people keep on with the legacy of older historic pioneer names.
My thanks to Marion Uldricks who gave me the background of her in-laws Caspar and Alice. Thanks to retired KCC professor Robert Mann for telling me about his father who taught at Purdue and was part of the Purdue grid project. If you like these articles, please consider supporting the Historical Society of Battle Creek. Visit www.heritagebattlecreek.org for details as well as materials added daily on Battle Creek history.
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