Why Memorial Drive has three names and other baffling quirks of Calgary's roads

Like many Calgarians, Doug Coats had often wondered why the city's roads are named the way they are, with some names changing multiple times along the same stretch of roadway and others simply dwindling out.

So the historian decided to take a look at some old city maps.

"I love maps, and I started looking at old maps and I had a lot of 'aha' moments," Coats told the Calgary Eyeopener.

He is now offering a virtual presentation called WhenAvenues Collide, as part of Historic Calgary Week.

"They had really good reasons in those days for making our road system the way they did," Coats said.

"In the old days, of course, we had the grid system in the inner part of the city and all of a sudden something doesn't fit the grid and it becomes a mystery but that's the fun of it."

Coats said there arestreets that seem to randomly disappear.

"Third Street, for example, goes from Prince's Island down to the railroad tracks and it just ends," hesaid."And there's a whole lot of mysteries that are caused by the same thing."

That thing was the railway coming through.

Crooked Calgary

When the city was first laid out, Coats said it was in a basic grid of streets that ran north-south and east-west.

"And then the railway came through and Calgary was a railway town. The railway hired the surveyor, and the surveyor of course made his avenues parallel to the railway tracks rather than to the survey grid lines," Coats said.

"They were three degrees out. And the result was that we have places where the avenues he created intersect the straight north-south, east-west lines and create funny little triangles and angles and shapes, and eventually they get so small that the road just peters out."

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Coats has looked into other mysteries, such as, why there is no college on College Lane, and why some southwest addresses arelocated north of the Bow River.

He will delve further into these quirks in his virtual presentation When Avenues Collide, which runs Friday evening at 7p.m. as part of Historic Calgary Week.

There's also the mysterious name-changing route we call, at various points, Memorial Drive, Parkdale Boulevard, Third Avenue and Bowness Road.

Coats said Memorial Drive originally ran all the way across the city and had six names along the route, such as Sunnyside Boulevard, Riverside Boulevard and so on.

After the First World War, two of those were combined and renamed Memorial Drive in honour of the Calgary soldiers who died in the war.

"In 1963, to end the confusion of all these separate sections of boulevard, the city combined them all and made Memorial Drive all the way across until they hit Parkdale Boulevard, which to me is still a mystery," Coats said. "I don't know why they didn't make that part of Memorial Drive."

He pointed out that if anyone has followed Parkdale Boulevard to its end, it turns into a back lane and a parking lot near Edworthy Park.

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At one time, the city limit was at 37thStreet N.W., and the streetcar was a viable way to get around. This is part of the explanation surrounding the area near Parkdale Boulevard, Third Avenue and Bowness Road.

Third Avenue was the start of a streetcar route in the northwest.

"[The streetcar] took Memorial Drive, but then it went up to Third Avenue because that was the road toward Bowness, and 37th Street was the city limit," Coats said.

"So the streetcar starts off at Third Avenue. Once you cross the city limit, it's not Third Avenue anymore. It's the road to Bowness, which everybody just called Bowness Road. And it stayed that way."

Coats also issued a challenge to CBC listeners: Do you know where in Calgary is there a Market Street anda Main Street?

If you think you know the answers, send atweet to @cbceyeopener, call our talkback line at 403-521-6209 or email eyeopener@cbc.ca.

• Listen to the full interview on the Calgary Eyeopener below.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.