Why are so many downtown Phoenix streets named after presidents?

PHOENIX — As Americans celebrate Independence Day and the nation’s 250th anniversary, a drive through downtown Phoenix brings a lot of familiar names, and a question: Why are so many streets named after U.S. presidents?

According to Steve Schumacher, the City of Phoenix’s historian, the answer dates back to Arizona’s territorial days, when Phoenix leaders were trying to establish the young community and demonstrate its American identity.

“When you dig into the history, you realize some of the older communities around the country went ahead and did that,” Schumacher said. They named their downtown main streets in that area after presidents, and Phoenix just followed along for various reasons, one being just civic pride, to put the president’s names on there.”

Schumacher said Arizona’s long stretch as a U.S. territory also played a role.

“One of the things that people need to remember is Arizona was a territory for 30 years before it became a state, so anything and everything that we could do to sell ourselves to the federal government, they were probably going to do,” Schumacher said. “That combination of civic pride, the right thing to do, Americanism, that sort of stuff really drove the selections of street names.”

The original plan was more organized than today’s map

The presidential streets weren’t placed randomly. At first, city planners wanted to go in order of the Presidents with the original goal of making navigating downtown easier.

“It started off in a certain order. Washington has always been the main street, that was the center of town, and that was planned to be the business district,” Schumacher said.

But then, as additional presidents took office, not all of them received streets.

“There was a bunch of presidents: Grover Cleveland, Rutherford B. Hayes, Johnson, he was impeached, so they decided not to put him in there, so it just got messy real quickly,” Schumacher said.

Why Roosevelt sits farther north

Schumacher says one of the Presidential streets was added later than many of the others, Roosevelt Street. Schumacher said that between the Roosevelt Dam, supporting statehood, and other local ties made him an obvious choice to name a street after.

“He was always a big supporter of Phoenix, and Arizona, as a territory he made numerous trips here definitely pushed the [Roosevelt] damn idea,” Schumacher said. “He was good friends with Dwight Heard. He and his wife built the Heard Museum and the Heard building downtown,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher hopes the street names encourage people to think about Phoenix’s history, especially around Independence Day.

“I think even the main thing is that even though our involvement with Presidents really go back to Taft, and even though we’re relatively young city compared to Boston, Chicago, New York, our history is very, very colorful,” Schumacher said. “The presidents of the United States up until we became a state recognized the opportunity that we had in Arizona and Phoenix.”

A total of 17 streets in central Phoenix were named after U.S. presidents.

From north to south:

Roosevelt Street – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president
Garfield Street – James Garfield, 20th U.S. president
McKinley Street – William McKinley, 25th U.S. president
Pierce Street – Franklin Pierce, 14th U.S. president
Fillmore Street – Millard Fillmore, 13th U.S. president
Taylor Street – Zachary Taylor, 12th U.S. president
Polk Street – James K. Polk, 11th U.S. president
Van Buren Street – Martin Van Buren, eighth U.S. president
Monroe Street – James Monroe, fifth U.S. president
Adams Street – John Adams, second U.S. president
Washington Street – George Washington, first U.S. president
Jefferson Street – Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president
Madison Street – James Madison, fourth U.S. president
Jackson Street – Andrew Jackson, seventh U.S. president
Harrison Street – William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. president
Buchanan Street – James Buchanan, 15th U.S. president
Lincoln Street – Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president
Grant Street – Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. president

Breaking

Why are so many downtown Phoenix streets named after presidents?

The original plan was more organized than today’s map

Why Roosevelt sits farther north

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