CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 63 F E A T U R E D uring WWII, villagers in England removed or painted out road signs to confound outsiders in finding their way, and thus to hamper potential enemy reconnaissance and invasions. e city of Fayetteville manages to do that every day with the road signs still in place and entirely visible. All over Fayetteville, there are roads and streets that change their name along the length. Drivers may start on Skibo Road, then find themselves on Pamalee Drive, and finally on County Club Drive. McPherson Church Road and Yadkin Road are but one stretch of asphalt. It's no better downtown, where Gillespie Street becomes Green Street for a few blocks and then turns into Ramsey Street as it continues north. Why are the streets of Fayetteville so confusing? e answer to that question, like the street names, is complicated. Tradition, planning (or lack thereof), geography, growth, and hey doses of ego and obstinance all play parts in the answer. Fayetteville got an early start on the road to confusion, when the town itself went through several name changes. Back in the mid-1700's, the area we think of as downtown Fayettteville, was a town called Cross Creek. In 1762, a new county seat for Cumberland was laid out in a neat grid on empty land along the western bank of the Cape Fear River, just over a mile away from Cross Creek. In 1778, Cross Creek and Campbellton were combined to form Upper and Lower Campbellton. In May 1783, there was a weak suggestion that Upper and Lower Campbellton be renamed Milton, but by the fall of 1783, the triumphant name of Fayetteville was chosen in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat and military officer, whose support was crucial to the patriot cause during the American Revolution. During the five years that the flourishing merchant town went through several name changes, a handful of local leading citizens had been commissioned to lay out and name new roads befitting a bustling county seat. at never happened. e language of the act from 1783 authorizing the naming of Fayetteville tells the story: "an Act for appointing the several persons therein named to lay out the streets… and it is found by experience that appointing commissioners for the purposes aforesaid who reside in the said town, will not answer the intention of this Act, the jarring interest of different parties preventing them from agreeing upon any one plan…." Strip away the legislative language, and what it says is: "we've learned that when we ask a bunch of locals to lay out and name streets, they can't agree on how to get the job done, so now we have to ask outsiders." e previous commissioners were demoted to being in charge of street maintenance and cleaning, and a new group of commissioners was selected to lay out and name the streets. Four of the seven new commissioners named came from neighboring counties, but local citizens refused to be routed, and ultimately three local men were added. We don't know for certain what the original commissioners couldn't agree on, but likely, one major factor was who would have the honor of naming the new HISTORY What's in a (Street) Name? BY GABY KIENITZ IMAGES CONTRIBUTED BY WEEKS PARKER

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