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A-L-L W-E-L-C-O-M-E HERE streets were first officially named and marked after the city was incorporated in 1933. It was several years later that the Fredericksburg Lions Club took on the project of giving all the streets names and purchased and installed street signs. It was then that it was decided to name the streets running north and south across Main to spell out words. Starting at Courthouse Square, all of the streets crossing Main to the east were named so that their first letters would spell out “All Welcome”. These streets are Adams, Llano, Lincoln, Washington, Elk, Lee, Columbus, Olive, Mesquite and Eagle. Traveling west from the Courthouse Square, the streets spell out “Come Back”. These street names are Crockett, Orange, Milam, Edison, Bowie, Acorn, Cherry and Kay.
T
o most, it’s just two signs on a corner. But have you ever wondered how Fredericksburg’s streets got their names?
Many of the streets found throughout the city are named in honor of trees — Mesquite, Cherry, Cottonwood, Hackberry, Liveoak, Mulberry, Apple, Orange, Plum, Pear, Pecan, Poplar, Spruce, Sycamore and Walnut.
Naturally, there is a street named Peach, in honor When the town’s planners picked names for the of the county’s most popular and prolific fruit. streets on the main thoroughfare, they encoded into There is an Elk Street and a Deerwood Street, but the names of consecutive streets a ‘welcome’ and a no deer street. ‘goodbye’. There are several named for famous native son Most of the city byways have large signs showing Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, including Nimitz Street, the name of the street and an illustration of the Nimitz Drive, Nimitz Circle and Nimitz Parkway. Vereins Kirche, a symbol of Fredericksburg that stands in the center of the city on Marktplatz.
The Vereins Kirche, through the years has become a commonly-recognized landmark of Fredericksburg and placing a sketch of the venerable structure on the street signs was a part of the city’s “dressing up” for the 125th anniversary of the founding of Fredericksburg in 1971.
But, there are no Johnson streets or Meusebach streets. There is a Bunny Drive, in the shadow of Cross Mountain, which is undoubtedly named for the city’s famed Easter Fires characters.
There are some unusual street names, such as Kraupahen, a contraction of the names of Mayor Edward Krauskopf and Commissioners Willie Pape and Max T. Henke, who were in office when the streets were named.
Among the more German names of streets is Ufer, which runs parallel to Main Street and three blocks And when the new Fredericksburg Post Office south. Ufer, in English, means stream bank, and was built, the city named a street there “Theodore undoubtedly was so named because it runs along the southern bank of Barons Creek, the main stream Specht Drive” in honor of the city’s first postmaster. that flows through the city. Actually, there were some streets named Originally, the street that runs along the north side before the project began in the early-1930’s, among them San Antonio, Travis and Austin Streets, of the creek was probably called Bach Strasse, but was translated to Creek Street when all of the city’s which retained their old names. However, what is
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