In early January 1935 Robert Van Nocker, Albert Lea’s city manager, decided to make changes with the names for some of the local streets. Maybe this was the result of some new year resolutions made by the city’s manager and the council members.

An article in the Jan. 10, 1935, issued of the Tribune quoted Van Nocker as commenting, “In considering this matter the city council has decided that it will be necessary to make some changes in street names, especially to do away with the present duplication of names. For instance, we now have a Park Lane, Park Avenue and Park Street, also a North, South, East and West Pearl Streets, and Lakeview, Lake Avenue and Lake Street, in widely separated sections of the city. Another matter under consideration is to further clarify the situation by the designation of all north and south streets as avenues and all east and west streets as streets, and short or dead-end streets as lanes or places.

As a result of Van Nocker’s proposals and city council action at the meeting on Jan. 15, 1935, several streets were given new names.

At that time the roadway from the city beach at the west end of Johnson Street to Tourist (now Pioneer) Park was designated as Shore Avenue. The logical change was made to call this roadway North Shore Avenue.

For some odd reason Broadway then had an extension across Fountain Lake called North Broadway Avenue. This was changed to the present Lakewood Avenue.

A roadway along the south shore of Fountain Lake from Bridge to Newton Avenues was then called Lake Avenue. This glorified alley behind St. Theodore Catholic Church and what’s now the City Center was renamed Willow Street. In later years an extension of Fountain Street from Broadway to Newton Avenues resulted in the present name. Thus, Willow Street became what’s now East Fountain Street.

A short street named Frank Hall Drive saluted the city’s first mayor. One proposal was made to change its name to Channel Street to more clearly indicate its location near the dam. That suggestion was changed by council action to create Wilson Street instead. And further to the south Park Street was renamed Frank Hall Avenue.

Two of the streets with the name of Pearl were eliminated in early 1935. South Pearl Street was renamed Madison Avenue. North Pearl Street in another part of the city was renamed Abbott Street in honor of Rev. Russell Abbott, a pioneer Presbyterian pastor and founder of Albert Lea College for Women.

Cherry Street went to the north from Fountain Street to the lake shore near what’s now Christ Episcopal Church. In reality, this short street was just an extension of Washington Avenue. Council action, thus, eliminated this use of the Cherry name.

However, about 15 years later this name was revived with the present Cherry Avenue between Johnson and Sheridan Streets on the city’s east side.

A suggestion to change Oak Street between Winter and Summer Avenues to Fall Street didn’t work out at all. Instead, the name of Autumn for this short street was approved by the city council. (By the way, how come we still don’t have a Spring Street or Avenue?)

On the peninsula north of Wedge Street, Oakwood Boulevard and Park Circle Drive were combined to create the present Circle Avenue.

There was some concern regarding possible confusing between Court Street and Court Lane, both located in different part of the city. A proposal to change Court Lane to Fenton Lane wasn’t approved by the city council. Today, those two streets have retained their original names. The Fenton name was later used for a short avenue on the city’s east side.

Because of the railroad tracks, Albert Lea has a few disjointed or disrupted streets. A few examples are William, College, Sheridan and Johnson Streets and St. Thomas,. Columbus and St. Peter Avenues. In 1935 two of these streets has their names changed by council action. One was West Second to Alcove Street and West Third to Belmont Street.

Again, a special thank you goes to Kevin Savick for furnishing the newspaper clippings which inspired this column.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.