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The street whisperer
  
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By CYNTHIA LESCALLEET
Marks Hinton thought his book on Houston’s street names would take him six months to research and write.
Instead, sifting through scattered archives, accounts and interviews took him six years.
A local historian and author, Hinton is still updating and adding information online as he hears from new sources, receives inquiries and otherwise attempts to tie up some of the more evasive roadway nomenclature mysteries. The story behind Mangum, for example, has yet to be properly defined.
For those street tales he did uncover, however, Hinton distilled the information, both historic and humorous, into a sentence or two in “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names” (Archival Press of Texas). The 235-page book has been out a while, but Hinton has become a popular speaker on the subject around town.
He’ll speak at the Houston Museum of Printing History, 1324 W. Clay St., at 2 p.m. on Nov. 8 as part of that venue’s 6th annual Book Fair.
In person, the animated Hinton is clearly delighted to impart what he has learned. Ask him about a local street or two and his face and voice warm up to the subject, with asides and insights that run deeper than the book contents.
The origins of Buffalo Speedway is an especially rich topic to mine since it’s a bit of an urban legend spun off a kernel of fact. There was no race track, he said. There was, however, a mile-long stretch of fresh concrete pavement that attracted every would-be hot rodder to try out his top speed.
Long a fan of the tiled mosaic street markers at curbside in some older inner loop neighborhoods, Hinton still takes pictures of unusual signs and street names in his travels. Vampire Lane comes to mind, for example, and he has found a street named Marks and one named Hinton.
Hinton’s book describes streets alphabetically and includes shaded listings on points of interest, such as all those streets in Bellaire named for the women in the developer’s office and his partners’ wives, or all the streets that changed names for various reasons.
Bissonnet Street, for example, has had many names as it upgraded from County Poor Farm Road to Richmond Road to 11th Street (hence the tiny remnant West 11th in the Museum District).
Themes in naming streets emerge in the book’s listings: war heroes from the first World War, when Houston was small enough to know its neighbors; developers with a hankering for things English or literary; historic families, business titans and landowners; geographic references; hobbies (golf, gardening, cars) and mispelled words.
“Developers were better builders than spellers,” Hinton said. In the West University area, Weslayan rather than Wesleyan is a glaring example. Caroline Street downtown should have been Carolina. And Brig-o-doon, was a reference to the musical “Brigadoon.”
Once on the books, spelling is hard to change, he said. Besides, it’s not the job of the city’s planning department to correct spelling.
Read Hinton’s book and you’ll likely start spotting familiar names or oddities all over Houston, including some amusing intersections: Bell and Telephone; Currency and Dividend, Six Pack and Strohs; and Discipline and Patience.
Today, the trends in street names are ones easy to spell, easy to pronounce, easy to remember and easy on the ears, he said.
Hinton, who retired from investment banking, grew up in River Oaks when its street signs were orange and black. Now, he lives in a part of town that’s confusing to navigate since so many streets are Briar-derivatives. None of them are listed in his book.
When he’s not speaking about streets, Hinton is working on his next book. Coming soon from writer Marks Hinton: "The Architecture of Eternity: Houston's Historic Cemeteries.”
For information, visit www.archivaltexas.com.
Reading the streets
In West University: Colleges and university’s dominate the street names, but among the other origins are these:
Auden is a contraction of the surnames of Austin & Haden, early developers of West U and Southside Place.
Edloe is another contraction. Real estate developer Edward Lillo Crain Sr. named the street for his son, Edward Jr., by combining the first two letters of his first and last name (and adding an “e”). Had Edloe run due north into River Oaks, it would have run straight into Crain’s front door on Chevy Chase.
Tangley was just that, a swampy overgrown part of West U.
Stella Link is a reference to the railroad line it parallels, which once ran from Bellaire to the junction in Stella, Texas.
In the Museum District
Binz was named for Jacob Binz, who built Houston’s first skyscraper, a six-story building on Main Street.
Literary references abound in Southgate, where Swift, Dryden and Addison can be found.
Several Southampton streets and those in Afton Oaks reflect the developers’ interests in things English.
World War I soldiers who perished account for many street names inside the loop, such as Dunlavy, Waugh and Wescott.
In River Oaks, the names of famous country clubs and golf courses abound. Ella Lee honors the wife developer Hugh Potter.
And what about all those Braes-based streets? They come from the Scottish word for “hillside.” Brays, though, was an early Anglo settler, a surveyor.
Source: “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names”
Book Fair features Street Speaker
6th annual Book Fair
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 8
Houston Museum of Printing History
1324 W. Clay St.
Author Marks Hinton will share from his well-researched book “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names” in a lecture at 2 p.m.
The book fair, meanwhile, features more than 20 U.S. book dealers. Book quality ranges from collectible to moderately priced used books from a variety of genres, such as Texana, mystery, historical documents, out-of-print, first editions, comic books and children’s books.
Instead, sifting through scattered archives, accounts and interviews took him six years.
A local historian and author, Hinton is still updating and adding information online as he hears from new sources, receives inquiries and otherwise attempts to tie up some of the more evasive roadway nomenclature mysteries. The story behind Mangum, for example, has yet to be properly defined.
For those street tales he did uncover, however, Hinton distilled the information, both historic and humorous, into a sentence or two in “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names” (Archival Press of Texas). The 235-page book has been out a while, but Hinton has become a popular speaker on the subject around town.
He’ll speak at the Houston Museum of Printing History, 1324 W. Clay St., at 2 p.m. on Nov. 8 as part of that venue’s 6th annual Book Fair.
In person, the animated Hinton is clearly delighted to impart what he has learned. Ask him about a local street or two and his face and voice warm up to the subject, with asides and insights that run deeper than the book contents.
The origins of Buffalo Speedway is an especially rich topic to mine since it’s a bit of an urban legend spun off a kernel of fact. There was no race track, he said. There was, however, a mile-long stretch of fresh concrete pavement that attracted every would-be hot rodder to try out his top speed.
Long a fan of the tiled mosaic street markers at curbside in some older inner loop neighborhoods, Hinton still takes pictures of unusual signs and street names in his travels. Vampire Lane comes to mind, for example, and he has found a street named Marks and one named Hinton.
Hinton’s book describes streets alphabetically and includes shaded listings on points of interest, such as all those streets in Bellaire named for the women in the developer’s office and his partners’ wives, or all the streets that changed names for various reasons.
Bissonnet Street, for example, has had many names as it upgraded from County Poor Farm Road to Richmond Road to 11th Street (hence the tiny remnant West 11th in the Museum District).
Themes in naming streets emerge in the book’s listings: war heroes from the first World War, when Houston was small enough to know its neighbors; developers with a hankering for things English or literary; historic families, business titans and landowners; geographic references; hobbies (golf, gardening, cars) and mispelled words.
“Developers were better builders than spellers,” Hinton said. In the West University area, Weslayan rather than Wesleyan is a glaring example. Caroline Street downtown should have been Carolina. And Brig-o-doon, was a reference to the musical “Brigadoon.”
Once on the books, spelling is hard to change, he said. Besides, it’s not the job of the city’s planning department to correct spelling.
Read Hinton’s book and you’ll likely start spotting familiar names or oddities all over Houston, including some amusing intersections: Bell and Telephone; Currency and Dividend, Six Pack and Strohs; and Discipline and Patience.
Today, the trends in street names are ones easy to spell, easy to pronounce, easy to remember and easy on the ears, he said.
Hinton, who retired from investment banking, grew up in River Oaks when its street signs were orange and black. Now, he lives in a part of town that’s confusing to navigate since so many streets are Briar-derivatives. None of them are listed in his book.
When he’s not speaking about streets, Hinton is working on his next book. Coming soon from writer Marks Hinton: "The Architecture of Eternity: Houston's Historic Cemeteries.”
For information, visit www.archivaltexas.com.
Reading the streets
In West University: Colleges and university’s dominate the street names, but among the other origins are these:
Auden is a contraction of the surnames of Austin & Haden, early developers of West U and Southside Place.
Edloe is another contraction. Real estate developer Edward Lillo Crain Sr. named the street for his son, Edward Jr., by combining the first two letters of his first and last name (and adding an “e”). Had Edloe run due north into River Oaks, it would have run straight into Crain’s front door on Chevy Chase.
Tangley was just that, a swampy overgrown part of West U.
Stella Link is a reference to the railroad line it parallels, which once ran from Bellaire to the junction in Stella, Texas.
In the Museum District
Binz was named for Jacob Binz, who built Houston’s first skyscraper, a six-story building on Main Street.
Literary references abound in Southgate, where Swift, Dryden and Addison can be found.
Several Southampton streets and those in Afton Oaks reflect the developers’ interests in things English.
World War I soldiers who perished account for many street names inside the loop, such as Dunlavy, Waugh and Wescott.
In River Oaks, the names of famous country clubs and golf courses abound. Ella Lee honors the wife developer Hugh Potter.
And what about all those Braes-based streets? They come from the Scottish word for “hillside.” Brays, though, was an early Anglo settler, a surveyor.
Source: “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names”
Book Fair features Street Speaker
6th annual Book Fair
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 8
Houston Museum of Printing History
1324 W. Clay St.
Author Marks Hinton will share from his well-researched book “Historic Houston Streets: The Stories Behind the Names” in a lecture at 2 p.m.
The book fair, meanwhile, features more than 20 U.S. book dealers. Book quality ranges from collectible to moderately priced used books from a variety of genres, such as Texana, mystery, historical documents, out-of-print, first editions, comic books and children’s books.
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