Thursday, July 6, 2006 | 7:25 a.m.
It was sort of an inside joke, a tribute to a friend that came with stipulations. In the end, it immortalized them - whether anyone knew it or not.
The tale, according to local historian Mark Hall-Patton, goes something like this: developer Larry G. McNeal was laying out a portion of the Huntridge neighborhood and he told his friend, Florence Murphy, that he wanted to name a street after her.
Murphy, who was vice president of what is now North Las Vegas Airport, wasn't keen on having a street named after her. But she told McNeal that he could name a street after her if he used her real first name and if he named a street using his middle name.
Today, Colanthe and Gilmary sit side by side near the intersection of Oakey Boulevard and Rancho Drive. Colanthe is Murphy's first name, and Gilmary is McNeal's middle name. Both the namesakes are dead, but the joke between the two friends remains.
"Anybody living on Colanthe and Gilmary is probably unaware of the tale behind it," says Hall-Patton, whose real job is administrator of the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum at McCarran International Airport.
That's what happens when you investigate street names, the historian says. You unearth practical jokes, love stories, friendship, family dedications and memorials.
Hall-Patton isn't interested in Fremont Street or Gass Avenue - the streets with familiar stories, named after explorers, prospectors, big hotels, prominent politicians and Las Vegas celebrities.
He's researching the little guys, and that kind of research relies on oral history. "Most of these stories never get written down. With Colanthe and Gilmary, there was no way beyond Florence to know that," he says. And if he hadn't talked with her before her death, he'd never have known the story.
Stephanie Street in Henderson?
Named for Stephanie Page Wurzer, the eldest daughter of Harold J. Wurzer, a plant manager for Stauffer Chemical, which used some of Basic Magnesium's buildings.
"This isn't the kind of history that changes people's lives, but can be enriching," he says. "Here is a person who may not show up in history books, but by God, here is their name on the land."
Hall-Patton wrote a book, "Memories of the Land: Placenames of San Luis Obispo County," after working as director of the county museum there and writing a weekly history column for its local paper. He figures he has another year of research before he writes a book on Las Vegas street names, tentatively titled "Asphalt Memories."
"He's got a pretty good wit about him so this isn't going to be a gray tome," says Bob Stoldal, vice president of KLAS Channel 8's news operations. Moreover, the local history buff says, it will shed insight into the community. "It could be the beginning of more stories that people don't know about. The gaps need to be filled."
Some streets already have been written about, but not recently. An old newspaper editorial revealed that street names near the Stratosphere - from New York to Cincinnati - were named after cities with major league baseball teams, supposedly in the order they finished that year, Hall-Patton says, although he is not sure of the year.
Mostly, Hall-Patton bugs everybody for information. He never knows where he'll find another piece of his puzzle. In a suite at a NASCAR race, he learned that Di Blasi Drive was named for the maternal grandmother of the developer. While at the ski resort at Lee Canyon, he found out that Naples Drive was named for Kelly Naples, who lived on the street. A former KLVX Channel 10 employee told him that Keith Street was named after Keith Delzer, the street's first resident.
He knows there are street names with histories that are lost. Others, he says, are mere inferences. Craig Road "probably" was named for landowner Lois Craig.
Street names have changed: San Francisco became Sahara Avenue and Bond Road became Tropicana Avenue.
Others are clever word play: John Wayne Street is just down from Marion Morrison Court, using the Western star's given name. Valle Verde (Drive) is the Spanish translation of Green Valley (Parkway). Albert and Winnick avenues off East Flamingo Road are named for the same man: Albert Winnick.
Modern-day developers often rely on "real estate Spanish," Hall-Patton says, which doesn't interest him. Nor has he spent much time researching the streets named for "Star Wars," the Beatles or "Bonanza" actors.
"The reality is that the people who do subdivisions run out of names real fast," he says.
He's more interested in street names with unique tales, such as the subdivision off Maryland Parkway and Tropicana Avenue that follows the branches of the Wilbur Clark family tree. Just off Wilbur Street is Toni Avenue (Clark's wife), Shirley Street (his dad), Lulu Avenue (his mom) and Merle Street (his sister).
"The city is a lot older than people think it is," says David Millman, a collections curator at Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, who says locals can benefit from Hall-Patton's research. "What you get from this is a sense of community, that there were people here who worked hard to create the city and that it didn't spontaneously appear courtesy of hotels.
"Even longtime residents can feel a sense of transience."
When a city grows like this, small drives become major thoroughfares.
When Stephanie Street was named, it was "just a dirt lane," the real Stephanie Wurzer says. She knew all three Lynn namesakes who lived on Lynn Lane.
Some streets are misspelled: Count Diero Drive is named after Robert Deiro.
Some, such as Stewart Avenue, are controversial.
"There are different opinions about it," Stoldal says. "Was it named for Helen Stewart, the Stewart family or named after a Nevada senator named Stewart?"
Hall-Patton says he has traced the lineage of about 320 street names so far. He adds 10 to 15 new streets each month, if he's lucky.
"For as long as I'm working on this, I'll keep adding to it. You might as well put in those stories now or they'll get lost," he says.
"I'm very cognizant of the fact that this does take an odd focus."
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