From Echo Road to Russell Street, this book uncovers history of Sarnia street names
If you're driving through Sarnia and have ever wondered how certain streets got their strange names, you're in luck.
The Streets of Sarnia project has been uncovering the history of the city's more-than-700 streets since 2014. And now, it's available in print.
Tom St. Amand, one of the book's authors, said The Streets of Sarnia started while celebrating the completion of a separate project which highlighted people with connections to Sarnia who served in wars.
"[Sarnia Mayor] Mike Bradley, who was a huge supporter of both projects, just mentioned with no pressure, 'Well, maybe, someone should look at the streets.'"
But while St. Amand — and fellow The Streets of Sarnia author Randy Evans — coincidentally had a shared love of street names, they weren't the first to tackle this assignment.
"The first thing that we did was that we consulted a book that was written in 1988 by another local historian George Smith," said St. Amand. "We thought that we would update it with more information."
Of course, several new streets have been developed in Sarnia since then. But St. Amand said his goal was always the same: to tell the stories of people who streets were named after.
"It was easy at the beginning. But it got tougher as more streets had to be unearthed."
'Several Sarnians came forward'
According to St. Amand, unearthing that history wasn't a two-man job. He said "several Sarnians came forward," including residents, contractors, surveyors and even Sarnia natives who are now living in the US and Europe.
"We had over 500 people help us ... They would contact us at the email that we had set up," said St. Amand.
"We spent hours at the registry office. We consulted directories. It just came together a lot slower than we thought.
Initial estimates pegged the project to be finished in three to six months — but it ended up taking about four years.
The history of...
Christina Street: One of Sarnia's three founders, Malcolm Cameron, named streets after family members or political reformers. Christina was the name of Cameron's wife.
"She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. So it couldn't have been an easy existence for her, but she dealt with it with great patience and with great class, actually," said St. Amand.
"When her funeral was held here, Mayor [Robert Sinclair] Gurd asked during the funeral services that businesses be closed in honour of Mrs. Cameron."
Russell Street: It was long thought that the street was named after local politician, business-owner and brewer George Russell. But according to St. Amand, that was not the case.
"We realized, according to an 1854 registered plan, that George Russell, would've been 14 or 15 years old, probably wasn't in the brewery business, probably wasn't in Sarnia," said St. Amand.
"It was named actually after John Russell, the 19th-century Prime Minister of Britain ... Malcolm Cameron favoured those people who wanted reform."
Echo Road: Landowner Myrtle Harkins gave this street its name after the sounds of the children playing.
"[She] used to sit at her kitchen window and she would listen to kids playing in the field and the land in which Echo Road now sits, at one time in the 50's, was a series of sand hills, streams, and she used to hear the cries and playing of little kids echoing their cries," said Amand.
"These cries of joy inspired her to say to her family that if I ever own that property, 'I'm going to call it Echo Road.' That's exactly what she did."
