A Few Fairmont Oddities

[vakkotaur]

Main street is not the, or even a, main street. It used to be a main street, but in the 1980s there was a push to make the downtown business area bigger and Downtown Plaza was created and improved from an older street, a block over. That and the small, but never fully used, mall pretty much killed Main street.

North North avenue. Downtown Plaza was made from part of North North avenue. North of Downtown Plaza, it becomes North North again. South of an east-west Avenue it used to be South North avenue, but that name was changed a while ago.

The avenue dividing North and South is Blue Earth Avenue. Blue Earth is the next town of any size to the east. Blue Earth avenue, named for another town (or county, or river, none of which are all that near Fairmont) is the main east-west street in Fairmont.

Comments

[frostyw.livejournal.com]

In my hometown, Main St is a small street that runs from Route 9/30 to, well, Route 9/30 maybe a 1/2 mile up the street into the center. Most of it is off-limits, actually, as the town hasn't seen fit in at least ten years to repair the little bridge at one end. Therefore, it's essentially a dead-end private street. :)

[shelbystripes.livejournal.com]

I've seen plenty of absurd names around here, including "Northwest Highway" that runs from east to west (giving you "E. Northwest Hwy." and "W. Northwest Hwy." which confuses the heck out of people) but I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so absurd as "North North Avenue".

[taper.livejournal.com]

There's a town in Maryland named North East. (Not a suburb; there is no town named North, nor is there a town named East.)

Author Spider Robinson has hope that someday expansion will create a suburb named Southwest North East.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I wish I could recall the name of the show, but there was a television comedy once that was set in the town of "Northeast Southweston." The show was rather silly. At least once in every episode there was a trip to a dreaded building whose claim to infamy was that it was the tallest building without an elevator.