Indiana Avenue Isn't Named After the State of Indiana. Here's the 1949 Plan Behind It

Drive west of University Avenue and the street names start marching through the alphabet: Hartford, Indiana, Ithaca, Joliet, Knoxville, Louisville, Memphis. That’s not a coincidence. Ordinance No. 924, passed in 1949, reorganized the city’s street names so that avenues west of University Avenue would be named alphabetically for cities east of the Mississippi River.

Under that plan, Tyler Avenue became Indiana Avenue. And according to the historical record, that Indiana likely refers to Indiana, Pennsylvania, not the state of Indiana. The same ordinance made other changes too, including Akron, Boston, Canton, Detroit, Elgin, Flint, and Gary. It also created alphabetical tree names east of Avenue A, college names north of First Street, and included instructions for continuing the pattern as the city grew.

So the next time you’re sitting at a light on Indiana, you’re parked on top of a little piece of city-planning history that’s been quietly working for 77 years. What’s the street name in your neighborhood that you’ve never been able to figure out?