{"id":453043,"date":"2026-10-01T09:44:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453043\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T09:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:44:23","slug":"how-a-1949-ordinance-reorganized-all-of-lubbocks-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453043\/","title":{"rendered":"How A 1949 Ordinance Reorganized All Of Lubbock’s Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve lived in Lubbock for any length of time, you’ve probably driven Indiana Avenue approximately 14,000 times.<\/p>\n

As a life-long Lubbockite,\u00a0here’s something I had never really thought about: Why is it called Indiana Avenue?<\/p>\n

\"News\/Talk<\/p>\n

Was somebody important from Indiana? Did an early Lubbock resident just really love the Hoosier State?<\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

It turns out there’s an actual system behind the name, and Indiana Avenue apparently isn’t named for the state at all.<\/p>\n

\"GoogleGoogle MapsGoogle MapsIndiana Avenue Used to Have a Different Name<\/p>\n

The answer is buried in an old City of Lubbock<\/a> ordinance.<\/p>\n

In 1949, Lubbock adopted Ordinance No. 924<\/a>, which reorganized street names around the city. As part of that change, Tyler Avenue became Indiana Avenue.<\/p>\n

And Tyler wasn’t alone.<\/p>\n

Washington became Akron. Adams became Boston. Jefferson became Canton. Madison became Detroit. Monroe became Elgin. Jackson became Flint. Van Buren became Gary.<\/p>\n

Keep going west and you get Hartford, Indiana, Ithaca, Joliet, Knoxville, Louisville and Memphis.<\/p>\n

At first glance, that’s a pretty strange collection of names.<\/p>\n

Until you know the rule.<\/p>\n

Indiana Avenue Isn’t Named After Indiana<\/p>\n

According to Lubbock’s street-naming ordinance, avenues west of University Avenue were to be named alphabetically for cities located east of the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n

That’s the key.<\/p>\n

Indiana Avenue therefore appears to refer to Indiana, Pennsylvania, rather than the state of Indiana.<\/p>\n

Look at the sequence:<\/p>\n

Hartford \u2192 Indiana \u2192 Ithaca \u2192 Joliet \u2192 Knoxville \u2192 Louisville \u2192 Memphis.<\/p>\n

They’re city names arranged alphabetically.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the Lubbock street map starts looking a whole lot less random.<\/p>\n

\"GoogleGoogle MapsGoogle MapsThere’s a Hidden Pattern All Over Lubbock<\/p>\n

Once you discover this, you start noticing that Lubbock’s street names contain several little systems hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n

The 1949 ordinance designated avenues east of Avenue A with alphabetically arranged tree names. That’s where names including Ash, Birch, Cedar, Date, Elm and Fir came from.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0All American Color Guard Suspended By Texas Tech Athletics Mid-Season<\/a><\/p>\n

North of First Street, another naming scheme used colleges and universities, again alphabetically. That produced streets including Amherst, Auburn, Bates, Baylor, Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke and Emory.<\/p>\n

And on the west side of town, it was cities.<\/p>\n

The ordinance even anticipated Lubbock’s future growth, providing instructions for continuing the alphabetical city-name system as new streets were added.<\/p>\n

\"GoogleGoogle MapsGoogle MapsSo Now You Know<\/p>\n

For more than seven decades, Lubbock residents have been driving up and down Indiana Avenue without necessarily realizing there’s a little piece of city-planning history underneath their tires.<\/p>\n

Before 1949, it was Tyler Avenue.<\/p>\n

Then Lubbock reorganized its street names, started working through an alphabetical list of cities, and Tyler became Indiana.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Does the Lubbock County Jail Have to Be Air Conditioned? Here\u2019s What Texas Law Says<\/a><\/p>\n

And apparently, Indiana Avenue is named after Indiana, Pennsylvania…not Indiana the state.<\/p>\n

Which means the next time you’re stuck at 50th and Indiana staring at a red light, at least you’ve got something to think about.<\/p>\n

You’re sitting on a Lubbock history lesson.<\/p>\n

What areas of construction in Lubbock are currently driving you INSANE?!?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Landon King<\/p>\n

If you could bring back one restaurant or biz that closed in Lubbock, what would it be?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Landon King<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve lived in Lubbock for any length of time, you’ve probably driven Indiana Avenue approximately 14,000 times.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169,223],"class_list":["post-453043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}