Salt Lake City and County Street Names and Numbers
This page was last updated on January 8, 2010.
The subject of cross referencing today's street names and numbers in Salt Lake City and County, with their historic names and numbers comes up whenever I have been doing research for locations of within Salt Lake County, including street car lines and the locations of various smelters.
From the pioneer times Salt Lake City's street numbering system used the First South, Second South, etc., method, giving names to streets as they progressed south from Temple Square. Thus, 100 South was First South, 200 South was Second South, and so on.
This numbering was used to Ninth South at today's 900 South. From that point, the roads were among the "Big Fields", or the five- to twenty-acre plots where the pioneers cultivated their crops. The naming system continued, but since the roads were farther apart, the area between them was much larger. After Ninth South (900 South), the next road was known as Tenth South, and became today's 1300 South. Next came Eleventh South, which is today's 1700 South. Twelfth South is today's 2100 South, and Thirteenth South is today's 2700 South.
There the "Big Fields" area of Salt Lake City ended and Salt Lake County began. The naming system continued with Fourteenth South being today's 3300 South. The area south of Thirteenth South (today's 2700 South) was known as Millcreek, named for the creek that flowed in the vicinity between the Wasatch Range and the Jordan River. Today's 4800 South was shown on a Union Pacific engineering drawing as Seventeenth (17th) South, being the location of the Murray depot.
On May 12, 1916 the Salt Lake City commissioners voted to change the names of the city streets south of the city. "The names of Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth South streets are changed to Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first and Twenty-seventh South streets, respectively. The new names conform to the street numbering and are in harmony with the system which is effective throughout the larger part of the city and is now being extended in the county and in Murray city." (Deseret News, May 12, 1916, "this morning")
| Pioneer Name | Current [2009] Number |
| 9th South | 900 South |
| 10th South | 1300 South |
| 11th South | 1700 South |
| 12th South | 2100 South |
| 13th South | 2700 South |
| 14th South | 3300 South |
| 15th South | 3900 South |
| 16th South | 4500 South |
| 17th South | 4800 South (Murray-Taylorsville Road) |
Lyman System
Richard R. Lyman was the vice-chairman of the Utah State Road Commission from 1908-1919. The Utah State Road Commission was created in 1909 and Richard R. Lyman was one of its original members and its first vice-chairman, which position he held during all of his nine years of service. On April 18, 1918 he became an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (Richard R. Lyman on Wikipedia; Richard R. Lyman Biography)
Lyman was a professional civil engineer. During the 1930s he was one member of a three-member commission established by the American Society of Civil Engineers whose purpose was to develop a system for numbering for streets and roads to make it possible for any traveler to find an address in any city without the help of a map. As early as June 1936, Salt Lake County was using this grid system of street numbering. (Deseret News, June 30, 1936, "being erected in all of Salt Lake County")
In November 1945 the Utah State Road Commission received approval for a state-wide road and street numbering system, and together with the Utah Publicity and Industrial Development Commission started a project to begin using the Lyman System of street numbering cross the entire state. The reported completion date was to be Pioneer Day in 1947, to have "all Utah streets so numbered by July 24, 1947, that anyone can find any address without a map or other help." (Deseret News, November 7, 1945) The state highway department started its use of the Lyman system in mid 1946, with an newspaper article reporting that in early September 1946 "work is just now getting started on installation of a Lyman street numbering system in certain sections of the state..." (Deseret News, September 6, 1946)
It was during this conversion in 1946 that the streets of Salt Lake City began using a dual system of names and numbers that many found to be confusing. On Salt Lake City's west side and north side, the streets had always been named for the number of blocks they were west and north of Temple Square, which was bounded on all four sides by named streets: Main Street; South Temple Street; West Temple Street; and North Temple Street. Moving west from West Temple Street the first street encountered was named First West, then Second West, then Third West, etc. Moving north from North Temple Street, the first street was named First North, then Second North, etc.
Using a grid numbering scheme that became known as the "Lyman System," with the intersection of South Temple Street and Main Street being the starting point, West Temple Street became 100 West, and North Temple Street became 100 North. The dual system of street names and numbers arose because in Salt Lake City's west side the street names did not match their new street numbers, such as Second North actually being 300 North, and Second West, a major thoroughfare, actually being 300 West. A newspaper article in 1947 gave an example of the confusion, showing that one of the intersections on the west side would be shown as Fourth West (500 West) and Fifth North (600 North). The article suggested that most residents of the west side would likely pick one system and ignore the other. The article also mentioned that Salt Lake City had installed 75 percent of the new street signs and that the remainder would be completed by the end of the week, meaning that the project was actually completed in late April or early May 1947. (Deseret News, April 18, 1947)
During the fall of 1972 the confusing dual system of names and numbers for Salt Lake City's west side was changed. It was first proposed to the Salt Lake City Commission by a resident in January 1972. The city engineer reported to the commission that the change was not practical and would be "opening a can of worms" including the need to change surveys, maps, and city records, as well as records in the Salt Lake County assessor, surveyor, and recorder's offices. On January 19, 1972 a Deseret News editorial agreed with the need for a change but cautioned against it due to the projected costs. After studying the issue, in early August 1972 Mayor Jake Garn said that he would recommend to the commission that the change be made in phases that would include adopting the change in the city's water department as they began using a new computer system, and in the street department as they installed new street signs as part of an already approved modernization effort that would include reflectorized signs at each street corner. (Deseret News, August 5, 1972)
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