We contemplate the origins of some of our town’s names– from Willey to Van Voorhis. Ever had to correct a newcomer on how to say Patteson and stop to think, “Unless, does that road sign have a typo? Was it supposed to be Patterson?” Like anywhere, many streets in Morgantown were named after the area’s most respected families or businesses. They’re familiar, even if you can’t be certain of their origin. Not only do many of our streets bear the names of well-known past families, but many have undergone altogether interesting changes, while others are the subjects of comical controversy. University Avenue used to be called Front Street, and Morgantown once had two Front Streets—including part of present-day Wilson Avenue near Morgantown High School. Spruce Street used to be a twoway street. A lot has changed, according to Michael McClung, manager of the Aull Center, a haven of history on Spruce Street. “Sabraton used to be called Sturgiss City because a man named Sturgiss ran the tin mill over there,” he says. George Sturgiss’ wife was named Sabra, and the town was eventually renamed Sabraton. What about Fife Street? What’s its story? Michael says that’s a tough one, and no one really knows as the city doesn’t keep records of why streets are named what they’re named, though plenty of folks are happy to speculate. He has a hard time taking seriously the claims that Fife Street somehow coincides with Don Knotts’ character, Barney Fife, on The Andy Griffith Show. “I’ve had several people come in and say, ‘Isn’t that where Don Knotts got his character’s name for Andy Griffith?’ And I say, ‘I don’t think so.’ I think if there is any basis to any of this it’s that he may have gotten the name Barney Fife from Fife Street, but that’s really reaching,” Michael says. “I mean he was so happy to get 52
Morgantown • Apr/MAy 2015
An old book of maps at the Aull Center shows the transformation of areas throughout the county, like Sabraton, formerly known as Sturgiss City, with diverse blocks of hyphenated streets. “You don’t see too many streets named El-Jadid in this part of the country,” says Michael McClung, manager of the center for local history and genealogy research, pointing to the 1921 map.
work back then he wouldn’t care what his character’s name was.” On the flip side, Patteson Drive in Morgantown is one street we can be certain of. It was named for West Virginia Governor Okey L. Patteson, who served from 1949 to 1953. Why is he so important locally? Governor Patteson is the reason the state’s first medical center located in Morgantown instead of Charleston. The tale is told in part in Earl L. Core’s five-part historical series, The Monongalia Story: “After listening to all the arguments and evidence and carefully studying the voluminous data represented to me, as well as the independent research which I have made, together with the advice and counsel of leading out-of-state experts and many citizens of our state, I have reached the definite conclusion that the logical and best place for the location of the medical school is in Morgantown,” he said on the radio one night in 1951. The new medical center access road, a fourlane street from Monongahela Boulevard to University Avenue leading to WVU Hospitals, was completed and named Patteson Drive in honor of Okey in 1960. Van Voorhis is another family name in Morgantown. Isaac L. Van Voorhis sat on Monongalia County’s first board of
education, back when six school buses served the Morgantown area, transporting 1,500 students in 1933, according to The Monongalia Story. He also sat on one of the county’s two Selective Service boards in the early 1940s. The name Willey is perhaps more widely known, as Waitman T. Willey was one of West Virginia’s first two senators. He settled in Morgantown in 1833 and built the Waitman T. Willey House in the late 1830s on Wagner Road. Today Willey Street winds its way down U.S. 19 and into the heart of downtown Morgantown and WVU’s campus. Alternatively, at least one of Morgantown’s major arteries—Greenbag Road—seems to have been named not for a person, but a company. In the early 1960s the Green Bag Cement Company of Pittsburgh started a new limestone plant on Deckers Creek near Greer, according to The Monongalia Story. The cement company bought land in South Morgantown for a dock to load limestone in barges to ship to Pittsburgh and constructed a new shipping dock along the Monongahela River. By the end of that year work began on a four-and-a-half-mile bypass road from Sabraton to South Morgantown, paid for by Green Bag Cement Company, according to the Morgantown Post.