What in the Yamhill 8/3/26
Streets in McMinnville follow an alphabetical order from Adams, Baker, Cowls, and onto the 15th letter of the alphabet. Blocks of streets continue this pattern in the city’s oldest section of town.
However, the grid is disrupted with Three Mile Lane cutting through Johnson, Kirby, Logan and Macy streets. Similarly, Lafayette Avenue and the railroad tracks divide the northern portion of these same streets.
At the intersection of 14th Street, J, K, L, M and N streets end at driveways or alleys of single-family homes.
At 15th Street, before the McMinnville High School, Ford, Galloway, and Irvine streets return on the other side of the campus. Likewise, Hembree Street ends at 12th Street, but returns north of the high school at 17th and 24th streets.
O is for Oak Way or the next block to the east Oregon Street. Oak Way is one block from Fifth Street to Ninth streets. Due to the curve of Lafayette Avenue and the McMinnville School District office to the west, the eastern blocks attempt to maintain the grid pattern, putting Fifth and Ninth Street a block apart.
Meanwhile, Oregon Street is the next street over and runs four blocks.
The alphabet streets end in this portion of the city, but there are several other places throughout McMinnville where street names are alphabetical.
Off Fellows Street, the pattern returns with north-to-south running avenues: Ashwood, Brockwood, Cedarwood, Drumwood and Elmwood.
Likewise, off 19th Street runs the north-to south-streets (from east to west) Adams, Birch and Cedar. Yamhill Street breaks the pattern, which is continued thereafter with Elm and Fir.
As previously reported in this column, the streets centered from the downtown area were originally named A, B, C, and so on. In 1928, a McMinnville city ordinance renamed them into the grid of alphabet and numbers we have today. Many of the east-west streets were changed, with Fifth Street becoming First. Others, such as Saylor Avenue, became Seventh Street.
The name changes added extra confusion when Baker Street was renamed Western Avenue, but then B Street was renamed Baker Street.
Likewise, Newby Street became Clay Street (located off Brooks Street and Irvine). N Street then became Newby, named after the pioneering Newby family.
Hembree was originally named Harrison and Railroad streets, and Irvine had been named Cooper — it was chaos in search of order.
From the Yamhill County Historical Society newsletter, The West Side, historian John White wrote about the name changes in the October 1998 edition in his article “Residents Needed a Map in 1928 McMinnville.”
“Consider for a moment the ramifications for letter carriers, delivery men and emergency response personnel,” he said. “Undoubtedly adding to the dissonance was the fact that several street names were discarded in one location only to be reassigned in another.”
Some other examples were Cleveland changed to Elm, with Elm changed to Alder, Alder to Cedar, Cedar to Ninth.
White said it was likely that residents may have been required to clarify their locations as being either on new or old Adams, and so forth.
“Sadly, in the process of implementing all these revisions, some well-deserved persons lost the distinction of having a street named in their honor,” he wrote. “Such names as Cook, Cooper and Saylor no longer appear at all, although some like Braly and Fletcher have been reestablished in more recent times.”
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