HISTORIAN SEEKS STORIES ABOUT CLARK COUNTY ROADWAYS

Mark Hall-Patton has given himself a two-year deadline to complete his current pet project, but given the breadth of the subject, that may not be enough.

"The county will be celebrating its centennial in two years," Hall-Patton said. "I'd like to have the book out for that."

The book in question is the definitive guide to the derivation of street names in Clark County. It's a task that involves archival research, interviews with long-time residents, a fair amount of educated guesswork and even some debunking of mythology.

It's easy to make the logical conclusion that Charleston Boulevard was named after Mount Charleston, but it takes a little more work to discover that the mountain was named after Charleston, S.C., the homeland of the surveyor who named it.

While some are simply the result of builders trying to come up with unique names, many have an interesting and enlightening history behind them. In the area of town just west of The Stratosphere with the colorful appellation Naked City, there is a section of roads named after cities in seemingly random order. It turns out, the order isn't so random after all.

"They're all cities with Major League Baseball teams at the time the neighborhood was built," Hall-Patton said. "They're named in the order they were ranked in the standings that year."

Hall-Patton is the administrator of the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum at McCarran International Airport. He's still looking for more information about the origins of street names in Clark County, particularly firsthand accounts. He can be reached at 455-7955.

-- F. Andrew Taylor