OPEN FORUM: Street names and address numbers

By DELMAR LEATHAM

In the movie Michael, John Travolta plays the title character, Michael the archangel. He boldly proclaims that he invented lines. Prior to that invention people were just milling around with no idea about where they were supposed to go.

In the early days of Moapa Valley, a similar problem existed. There were no street addresses. To find a person’s home it helped to know the genealogy of the Valley.

There was Marshall’s corner where three generations of Marshalls had lived, farmed and raised families at the same location.

Similar locations were known by a family’s name. The homes of Leavitts, Perkins, Waites and Pulsiphers were all used to locate where a neighbor might live.

If you were looking for the Browns you might be directed to turn by the old Leavitt house, which was next to the experiment farm, and three houses down on the right you will find their home. It should be noted that the experiment station was long gone and had become an alfalfa field. Also, it had been 40 years since a Leavitt had lived in the old Leavitt house.

If you were looking for someone’s house you might be directed to go to the onion field just past Yamashita corner.
You could be instructed to turn at the big cottonwood tree that grows by the irrigation canal.
A person might live across from the big fig tree that grows in the Robison’s cantaloupe field. Be careful that you don’t turn at the little fig tree that grows by the Peterson’s farm.

Some directions might take you south of Overton to the Sand Mine or the Game Farm. Other directions might take you to String Town and the Airport Road.

Of course, this system had its drawbacks. I remember in high school, a friend of mine asked a girl to go with him to a dance. He had no idea where she lived and failed to pick her up. That did not sit well with the young lady and the two of them never went on another date. If he had only known to take the Logandale dump road, cross the railroad tracks and turn left at the bent over stop sign that was hit by a dump truck back in ‘49!

One of my first jobs in the Valley required me to read water meters. All of the accounts were arranged alphabetically in a two-ring binder. I had to learn the name and location of everyone in the Valley.
After several years of reading meters and with the help of the newly developed home computer, I was able to print out a route sheet. The meters were listed in the order they were read.

A note might be added to help locate a meter such as, “Look over the fence that borders the old experiment station.” I had never seen any buildings in the area that could be the Station, but I was assured by older citizens that at one time there had been an office building located there.

As technology advanced it became possible to read meters electronically from a moving vehicle. This method saved time and money not to mention the relief it gave to the meter reader.

As the Valley grew so did the need for street names and house numbers. The volunteer ambulance and fire service needed to find an address quickly and accurately. If you had not lived in the area for three generations you might not know how to locate Grandma Mills who had just called complaining of chest pains. It turned out that her real problem was the over active imagination of her aged sister.

In order to provide for the safety of the Moapa Valley citizens, and one day make the UPS man happy, a map was needed.

At one time there were two town boards in Moapa Valley, one in Overton and one in Logandale. Each town board assigned the street names for their respective communities. However, no lot numbers were assigned.

The two boards eventually joined hands and formed the Moapa Valley Town Board. They requested help in creating an accurate map complete with house numbers.

Fern Barber and Cecilia Johnston volunteered to create the map. Ground zero, the center of the North/South/East/West grid, was determined to be a spot on main street in Overton. Many volunteer hours went into the creation of that map. A copy of that map can be found in the front of the local phone book.

Both Cecilia and Fern have passed on but their volunteer spirit and hard work appear in the numbers on every house. I am grateful to those determined women for making life better for all of us who call Moapa Valley home.