Where did St. Petersburg's street names come from? - Tampa Bay Times

Welcome back to Florida Wonders, a series where Tampa Bay Times journalists answer your questions.

Previous stories in this series have introduced the people Tampa Bay’s streets are named after and how to pronounce some of the area’s trickier names. Reader Jessica Salmond, 29, wrote in wanting to know just how street names are chosen around St. Petersburg. For the past 2 and a half years, Salmond has lived on Queen Street North and wondered why every other street around hers is a number.

It wasn’t always this way.

Queen St. North, sign, St. Petersburg. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

In the early 1900s, the downtown waterfront area was the center of St. Petersburg’s commerce and shipping. But there was “great confusion in the names of the streets and avenues of the city,” according to the then-St. Petersburg Times. A 1905 ordinance established about 40 numbered streets, including Central Avenue, which had been called 6th Avenue up until that point.

In the 1920s, newspaper stories described winter residents and locals alike still struggling to learn addresses and find their way around town. Many street corners were still unmarked. A sweeping ordinance in January 1928 named and renamed about 600 streets to “relieve duplications, complications and mystifications throughout the city,” according to the then-St. Petersburg Times.

Many of the roadways in the city received new names as St. Pete moved to a numbered grid system, explained Derek Kilborn, a manager in St. Petersburg’s urban planning and historic preservation division. Existing numbered streets were retired to be consistent with the new pattern. Central Avenue was the center line of that program, with the numbers increasing heading north or south from there. Streets run north to south, while avenues run from east to west.

While the majority of the new streets were known by numbers, a loose alphabetic pattern was established for the remaining road names moving away from Central. Burlington Avenue is about 2 blocks away, Dartmouth Avenue is about four blocks away, and so on. Queen Street was one of the named streets that follows this pattern.

Most of those street names are still with us today. But occasionally, the city has allowed changes.

Renaming changes the street name officially. Everyone along that street has to change their mailing address. Co-naming, on the other hand, tacks on a name to the existing street but doesn’t require an address change. Both are generally discouraged by the city, Kilborn said.

“Co-naming can get complicated,” he said. “It’s confusing for emergency services. It doesn’t seem to get properly reflected in digital mapping software.”

Kilborn’s office doesn’t receive proposals often, but there are some swaps he remembers from the last 20 years. For example, 9th Street was co-named so that it was also known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, although eventually it was renamed to just Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

Some name changes came after the Urban Land Institute recommended that the city make its downtown amenities more obvious to visitors. Second Street was co-named University Way as a nod to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus. A chunk of 5th Avenue South was co-named Dali Boulevard in 2008 to commemorate the museum’s move to its new location. Portions of 1st Street North and 1st Street South were co-named Florida Orchestra Way North and Florida Orchestra Way South.

A sign renaming Preston Avenue South to Paris Avenue South now stands at the intersection of 7th St. South and Paris Ave. South. [ Times (2010) ]

Other changes were prompted by people who wanted to honor the city’s past. After 8-year-old Paris Whitehead-Hamilton was murdered on Preston Avenue South during a 2009 drive-by shooting, the NAACP appealed to the city to rename the avenue’s name to Paris Avenue South.

And along the edge of the Bartlett Park and Historic Roser Park neighborhoods, 11th Avenue South was co-named Ingleside Avenue South from 4th Street South to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street South. Ingleside had been the original name of the avenue during the first two decades of the 1900s, before the 1928 ordinance changed 600 street names.

Citizens and neighborhood groups can petition to change street names if they get enough support from property owners. Kilborn’s division would then prepare a staff report outlining the request to the Community Planning and Preservation Commission. The commission would send out notice to property owners along the road and hold a public hearing before sending a recommendation to the city council. The council then has its own public hearing before deciding whether or not to approve the name.

Florida Orchestra Way South, 1 St. South, sign, St. Petersburg. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

Ingleside Avenue South, 11 Avenue South, St. Petersburg, sign. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

All requests for street changes must meet a specific criteria. If the street is going to be named after a person, the individual must have been deceased for at least a year. New names can’t be duplicates or phonetically similar to existing street names, and they must be consistent with the established grid and naming pattern. Names should also reflect an event, place, or person significant in local history or contribute “to civic pride and wider public knowledge or the appreciation of the heritage and history of the city.”

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Where did St. Petersburg's street names come from? - Tampa Bay Times

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