So long as we’re making a political issue out of our street names, why not address the representation issue head on?

One argument sometimes put forward to deny the District statehood is that with two senators and our small population, we’d be “over-representated” in the Senate. But aren’t we already extending a lot of the states a similar overrepresentation? Not in the legislative sense of the word, but in the geographic sense? In other words, what states get more asphalt on our streets than their populations deserve? Find out after the jump:

Every state has a street named after it in the District (some stretching well into Maryland). The longest is Pennsylvania Ave. at 27.8 miles while the shortest is a four way tie between North Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington, and Louisiana Avenues at .4 miles. So who gets more miles then they deserve? Here are the results:

Most Miles Per Million Residents

1. New Hampshire – 18.92
2. Rhode Island – 6.09
3. South Dakota – 4.48
4. Connecticut – 4.08
5. Vermont – 2.41
6. Georgia – 2.31
7. Pennsylvania – 2.23
8. Nebraska – 1.85
9. Massachusetts – 1.63
10. Wyoming – 1.50

If the state avenues were approtioned by population, New Hampshire would lose it’s precious marathon-lengthed road and have to be happy with that pathetic stretch of road we call California St. (it doesn’t even merit an Ave!)

So how about we make these ten overrepresented states a deal; you vote for our statehood and we won’t hand over your asphalt to a more deserving state. Deal?

For the record, here’s how all the avenues would be renamed (oddly enough, Hawaii Ave. is perfectly named.):

North Dakota Ave. to Wyoming Ave.

Oklahoma Ave. to Vermont Ave.

Louisiana Ave. to North Dakota Ave.

Washington Ave. to Alaska Ave.

Indiana Ave. to South Dakota Ave.

Iowa Ave. to Delaware Ave.

Tennessee Ave. to Montana Ave.

Delaware Ave. to Rhode Island Ave.

Hawaii Ave. to Hawaii Ave.

California St. to New Hampshire St.

Wyoming Ave. to Maine Ave.

Alaska Ave. to Idaho Ave.

Idaho Ave. to Nebraska Ave.

New Mexico Ave. to West Virginia Ave.

Kentucky Ave. to New Mexico Ave.

Arizona Ave. to Nevada Ave.

Texas Ave. to Utah Ave.

Montana Ave. to Kansas Ave.

Utah Ave. to Arkansas Ave.

Arkansas Ave. to Mississippi Ave.

Virginia Ave. to Iowa Ave.

Nevada Ave. to Connecticut Ave.

South Carolina Ave. to Oklahoma Ave.

Maine Ave. to Oregon Ave.

West Virginia Ave. to Kentucky Ave.

Vermont Ave. to Louisiana Ave.

Colorado Ave. to South Carolina Ave.

Illinois Ave. to Alabama Ave.

Missouri Ave. to Colorado Ave.

North Carolina Ave. to Minnesota Ave.

Oregon Ave. to Wisconsin Ave.

Mississippi Ave. to Maryland Ave.

New Jersey Ave. to Missouri Ave.

Maryland Ave. to Tennessee Ave.

Kansas Ave. to Indiana Ave.

Michigan Ave. to Massachusetts Ave.

Nebraska Ave. to Arizona Ave.

South Dakota Ave. to Washington Ave.

Minnesota Ave. to Virginia Ave.

Ohio Drive to New Jersey Drive

Florida Ave. to North Carolina Ave.

Alabama Ave. to Georgia Ave.

New York Ave. to Michigan Ave.

Rhode Island Ave. to Ohio Ave.

Wisconsin Ave. to Pennsylvania Ave.

Massachusetts Ave. to Illinois Ave.

Connecticut Ave. to Florida Ave.

Georgia Ave. to New York Ave.

New Hampshire Ave. to Texas Ave.

Pennsylvania Ave. to California Ave.

Some avenues disapear for a block or two, the straight route through those jumps was counted for these purposes (e.g. New Hampshire Ave. through Dupont) but where an avenue stops completely for a while (e.g. New Hampshire from U St. to Petworth) the gap is thrown out.

The Georgetown Metropolitan is proud to present the first in an ongoing series of thought pieces titled “Why Not”, wherein we explore different ideas for our neighborhood that are not typically discussed. The first installment relates to the street names. As described ad naseum last week, most of the streets in Georgetown used to have different names. They were changed in 1880 to be consistent with the rest of the District’s street grid. In the interests of celebrating Georgetown’s past as an independent city, should we consider changing them back?

Of course not, but there’s another option for recognizing the past that comes from the Crescent City. Find out after the jump:

Just about every street in Georgetown used to be called something else. You can see from this map below all the old names:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Changing the names back to the old names would be silly and confusing (and probably expensive). But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to highlight the 120 years Georgetown spent as an independent municipality.

Down in the French Quarter in New Orleans, there are a series of signs on the walls announcing what that street was called when the city was under Spanish control. Here’s an example:

It’s impractical to ask people to install similar signs on their houses here in Georgetown, but could we install alternative street signs below the official names? In the Capitol Hill Historic District they have emblem signs on the sign posts; Georgetown really has nothing like that. First of all: we ought to do something like that. Moreover, in whatever we do we ought to consider putting in an acknowledgement of what the old street name was since it’s an expression of Georgetown’s independent past.

P.S.: Was R St. really called “Road Street”? Did they get up that high and just run out of ideas? That’s one of the few cases where a plain letter’s probably better…

Running between N and O St. is a road that is mostly called Dumbarton St. However, in more than a few places it is called Dumbarton Ave. For instance, Dumbarton United Methodist Church uses the address “3133 Dumbarton Avenue”. Also, several homes are labeled with “Dumbarton Ave.” Hell, as shown above, Google Maps can’t make up its mind and just calls it both.

So what’s the deal? Why the split personality? For the answers, follow GM back through the 18th and 19th centuries after the jump:

The name “Dumbarton” made its way to Georgetown via Scotsman Ninian Beale who was granted 75 acres from Lord Baltimore in 1703 in what would become Georgetown. Beale named the land tract “The Rock of Dumbarton” after a massive rock located in Dumbarton, Scotland. This name carries on in Dumbarton House, Dumbarton Oaks, and of course Dumbarton St./Ave.

But what’s the right name? Probably street, but it’s complicated. First of all, for the first half of its existence the name was “Dunbarton” not “Dumbarton”. As seen from this map from 1851 (the earliest GM could find displaying either name) the road was called “Dubarton St.”:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

This spelling and designation continued through 1873:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

and at least through 1878:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

In 1871 Georgetown’s charter was revoked by Congress and the city was absorbed into District of Columbia, thus bringing to an end the autonomy of the City of Georgetown. By 1880, the street names of Georgetown were changed to be consistent with the rest of D.C.’s street grid. Thus east-west streets like Gay and Beall were changed to N and O, respectively; and north-south streets like Congress and High St. were changed to 31st and Wisconsin, respectively. Some streets, though, didn’t fit in with the grid system and so they kept their names. Dunbarton/Dumbarton was one of those.

Interesting side note: for a time after the revocation of Georgetown’s charter, the neighborhood was officially referred to as “West Washington”:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

According to Washington Post archives, the name “Dunbarton Avenue” begins to show up in their pages around 1881.  Here’s an example:

While the Methodists are celebrating the year 1884 as a centenary occasion, it is interesting to know that in Georgetown, now called West Washington, Methodism was founded in 1792, or 112 years ago. This fact is made public in an interesting pamphlet, entitled “A Centennial Sketch of Methodism in Georgetown, D.C.,” and compiled by J.W. Kirkley an official member of the Dumbarton-avenue M.E. Church, Georgetown. – Washington Post – Dec. 28, 1884

Here you can see an 1886 map where the road appears a “Dunbarton Avenue”:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

GM doesn’t have proof that the street renaming was what led to this, but if you look at the map above you’ll see that Olive St. was called “Olive Ave.” all of the sudden as well (not seen in this detail, but Potomac St. was listed as Potomac Ave. too). Maybe there was a decision to distinguish the non-conforming streets with the name “avenue”. This answer is still unsatisfying since Grace St. and Water St. were still listed as such.

Regardless of the objective, it appears that some change in designation occurred apparently the exact time of the street renaming. Additionally, by 1909 the “M” made its way into the name on maps, although as shown by the quote above, it had been used somewhat interchangeably by the Post for a while before that (oddly enough, the County of Dumbartonshire Scotland, where the Dumbarton Rock is located, actually changed its name to Dunbartonshire around the same time):

Courtesty of the Library of Congress

As late as 1942, maps listed the road as “Dumbarton Avenue”:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Despite this surge of “Avenue”, at some point between 1942 and today it appears that the District came down on the side of “Dumbarton St.”  The street signs say “St.” and the property tax rolls list homes on Dumbarton St. (although even that has two “Dumbarton Ave.” addresses!) A call to the Georgetown Post Office confirms that at least they think its Dumbarton St., however, they said that a letter addressed to Dumbarton Ave. will be delivered just as well.

So it seems that the long story of a short road has ultimately led to “Dumbarton St.” with only a few echoes around of its brief foray into avenuehood.

For what it’s worth, GM prefers Dumbarton Avenue. What do you think?