What\u2019s in a road name? Surrey Historical Society to release new book on old city street names<\/p>\n
Published 9:30 pm Wednesday, August 12, 2026<\/p>\n
Does the name Clover Valley Road sound familiar? What about Hall\u2019s Prairie Road, or Latimer Road?<\/p>\n
Historically, the roads in Surrey had names. That changed in 1957 when the city decided to move over to a numbered system.<\/p>\n
Some of that history has been preserved\u2014such as in historical signs that note Hall\u2019s Prairie Road, Bose Road, and Latimer Road\u2014but some of that history has been lost too.<\/p>\n
The Surrey historical Society (SHS) set out on a quest at the beginning of 2025 to preserve some of that road missing history. Now, they are releasing a new book called \u201cDriving in Surrey \u2013 A History of Surrey Roads Prior to 1957.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evelyn Wedley, president of SHS, told the Cloverdale Reporter a draft of the book is now at the publishers. She hopes it\u2019ll be printed and ready to go by Sept. 26.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been gathering information and doing research for close to two years,\u201d Wedley said.<\/p>\n
The journey from idea to bound book began when someone from Ireland asked for information about a relative who lived in Surrey in the past. The person thought Thomas Road (now 182nd Street) had been named after that relative.<\/p>\n
Wedley, said she and her fellow society members had trouble finding information about the person at first.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff at the (Surrey) Archives did a deep dive and found him,\u201d Wedley revealed. \u201cAt that time, we decided that some of our history was lost, or at least hard to find, and we should try to remedy that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, the idea for the book was born.<\/p>\n
To celebrate the release, the SHS is holding a book launch at the 1881 Town Hall on the Museum of Surrey\u2019s heritage campus on Sept. 26.<\/p>\n
The event will kick off with and a book introduction and a special powerpoint presentation. SHS will have displays set up and will have refreshments for all attendees.<\/p>\n
Wedley said they\u2019re also looking for people to send in stories about their early driving experiences in the city. Perhaps getting a license, or any strange memories they have, either positive or negative.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do a random draw for a copy of the book.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book launch will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 26. People are asked to RSVP to eewedley@yahoo.ca, if they plan on attending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a road name? Surrey Historical Society to release new book on old city street names Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-856283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}