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The first and most
obvious ones are Second and Fifth Streets. Anyone who's been
to downtown Las Vegas has probably noticed that there is no
Second street between First and Third, and no Fifth between
Fourth and Sixth. The Second Street has been renamed Casino
Center Drive. Fifth Street is now Las Vegas
Boulevard.
Next is Bond Road. You
may have noticed the Bondaire Club and the Bond Mobile Home
Park on East Tropicana between Koval and Paradise. Well,
according to my mother(who has lived here since the mid 60s)
there was no street there when those were built, and Bond
Road was named after them...can't confirm that though. Bond
Road is now known as Tropicana Avenue.
This next one is weird
to me. I've seen a topog map that has Lake Mead Blvd.
labeled College Drive, but the Community College is on
Cheyenne.
At one time, long
before McCarran Airport was where it is, there was a little
community in the south called Paradise Valley. And,
coincidentally, Paradise Valley Road went to Paradise
Valley.
Meadows Village
residents may know about this one. Before the Sahara was
built, the street south of New York, Chicago, St Louis,
Cleveland, Cininatti, and Baltimore, today called Sahara
Avenue, was called San Francisco Street.
I guess this one
isn't really fair, because part of it is still named
Highland. But into the late 80s or early 90s, Martin Luther
King Blvd from Oakey to Craig was called Highland Drive. Why
couldn't they have renamed something geeky like Bonanza? I
kinda dig Highland Drive.
Anyone that's seen a map
of the original Las Vegas townsite notices "Clark Avenue" on
the southern end of the McWilliams town. Clark is now known
as Bonanza Road. At one time, US 95 used Bonanza to get from
Las Vegas Boulevard to Rancho.
Las
Vegas Boulevard North through North Las Vegas has had three
names historically. Its first name was Main Street. Coming
into Vegas from the north on LV Blvd, you'll notice that
Main Street is straight ahead and Las Vegas Boulevard
branches to the left. Back in the day, Fifth Street(Las
Vegas Boulevard) ended at that intersection. The second
historical name was the Salt Lake Highway. I can remember
seeing this on maps into the 80s.
On the same note as
the Salt Lake Highway, Rancho was once known as the Tonopah
Highway and Las Vegas Boulevard was once known as the Los
Angeles Highway.
One of the more recent
road name changes is that of Lorenzi Street. Before US 95
was a freeway in the northwest, Rainbow Blvd was called
Lorenzi Street. Lorenzi Street still exists between
Westcliff and Charleston just east of Rainbow.
At Lake Mead, three
streets meet in a T. Northshore Road is the column of the T,
and the top of the T is Lakeshore Drive and Lake Mead Drive.
Originally, Lakeshore Drive continued all the way to I-15,
until it was renamed Lake Mead Drive.
Look at a map and you may
be able to guess this one(or look at the map on the LV
Freeways page) Green Valley Parkway was called Lamb
Boulevard.
For the next few, I
did a little research at the UNLV library. Many of these
next streets had two names, but ran in the same place(ie
Buffalo was Buffalo south of Washington, but Piedmont north
of Washington).
Harmon, east of
UNLV, was called Rockingham Avenue. No idea if there's a
reason for naming it such.
Note the names of the
streets between Tropicana(Bond Road) and Russell Road are
Reno, Hacienda*, and Rawhide. Reno and Rawhide were both
one time major cities in Nevada. Rawhide is now
nonexistant, Reno is now unimportant. But Hacienda's
original name was Ely Street, thus, all the streets in this
area were named after formerly important Nevada cities.
*-Hacienda is slowly
being renamed to Mandalay Bay Road, and may be completely
renamed such in Bracken and Spring Valley. Time will
tell.
Not sure when this namechange
happened, but on the 1953 CSAA map of Las Vegas, Pecos is
shows as Pecos Road(Mesquite Avenue.)
Hard
to believe as it may be, up to the late 1970s, there was
VERY little south of Sahara Avenue in the Southwest side of
town. There was, however, a ranch near the present day
intersection of Arville and Twain. Up to the late 60s, the
D4C ranch had a road that went from it to Las Vegas
Boulevard...Spring Mountain Road ended at D4C Road near
Highland Drive. Up to the late 60s, Spring Mountain Road
never intersected Las Vegas Boulevard-D4C Road did,
though.
Lake Mead Boulevard in
Eastland Heights was called Coran Avenue.
Before the Wynns came to
town, Wynn Road was called Wing Street.
As mentioned above,
Buffalo was Buffalo south of Washington and Piedmont
Boulevard north...this held into the 1980s.
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