Followers of the Twelve Mile Circle are aware of my fascination with portmanteaus, the mashing together of two distinct words to form a single new word (see the portmanteau tag for several examples). I stumbled across a new one, or at least a new to me, as I attempted to find variations on Public Streets. I consulted Wikipedia’s Street Type Designations and there I noticed "Stravenue." It was a portmanteau composed of Street and Avenue.
Little information on the Stravenue phenomenon exists. The few websites that explore this topic tend to quote heavily from each other. I’m not going to be able to add much value to the existing body of knowledge although I will provide a summary. I can also add something which nobody else seems to have considered, an interactive map of primary stravenue locations.
Invariably most of the other writers who stumbled across stravenues also did so by accident. The topic does sometimes make it into the mainstream media however, including the Arizona Star. The general blogger reaction to the discovery is: What the {fill in the exclamation or expletive of your choice}?!?. I got that out of the way in the title so let’s move along.
SOURCE: screen grab from Google Street View
Dover Stravenue?
Most sources claim that Stravenues are unique to Tucson, Arizona, a city configured generally on a grid of cardinal directions. In many parts of Tucson the streets run east to west and avenues run north to south. Railroad tracks in one part of the city run diagonally, northwest to southeast, and several small communities adhered to that orientation while eschewing cardinal directions. Many of the roads within those developments are called stravenues to signify that they run diagonally between streets and avenues of the more prevalent Tucson grid.
There are a lot of stories about the initial application of stravenue as a street suffix in Tucson. The Pima County Public Library took a bit of a contrarian view:
[the] … Library staff cannot find an exact origin of this term. We telephoned the Tucson Planning Department on March 7, 2008. The Tucson Planning Department said the term starvenue did not originate in Tucson and that stravenues are not unique to Tucson.
I did find a couple of references two stravenues outside of Tucson, albeit both still in Arizona and likely influenced by the Tucson occurrences: Lead Stravenue in Brisbee (map) and a reference to a Babin Stravenue on OpenStreetMap that was not corroborated in Google (listed as part of Zent Road) in San Simon. I sure would like to know where other examples of stravenue exist if they are not unique to Tucson. I couldn’t any other uses than those minor instances.
There are two primary stravenue clusters in Tucson plus a handful of disconnected outliers strewn about the city. I’ll embed both of the clusters below. You can open either of these in another tab and then zoom outward to see the complete file.
View Stravenues in a larger map
The larger cluster nestles between Interstate 10 and E. Benson Highway. Focus on the diagonal streets and drill down to see all of the stravenue names. Not every diagonal is a stravenue though, even within this cluster and that’s the weird contradiction. The suffix does not apply uniformly.
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It can quickly become an odd and confusing situation within the cluster. Imagine living at the crossroads of E. Dover Stravenue and S. Hartford Stravenue, with Canada and Frankfort Stravenues a block away. The U.S. Postal Service recognizes Stravenue as a legitimate suffix with the abbreviation STRA, however, how often would a resident’s mail get misdirected? How often would someone unfamiliar with the stravenue concept — like everyone else on the planet — inadvertently address mail to these locations as avenues instead?
View Stravenues in a larger map
The second cluster follows E. Aviation Parkway on both sides of a large railyard. Between them runs the longest stravenue that I found, the disconnected E. Fairland Stra., which was more than twice as long as the nearest contender. It stretched about 1.3 miles (2 km).
I’m a sucker for a good portmanteau although I’m not convinced that stravenue fills a burning need, nor apparently do people outside of two small corners of Tucson, Arizona.
I’ve had a bit of a sundial fixation since stumbling across the dueling Dodge City railroad time zone sundials during Kansas Mountain Time. I don’t think I’ll reach a point where I’m compelled to compile a list and go out of my way to visit them (as I do with lighthouses, fortifications and breweries), however I’d probably take a look if I found myself in the vicinity of a particularly remarkable specimen.
There are people infinitely more interested in sundials, and I certainly understand their passion for an esoteric topic considering my similar tendencies related to other objects. I found a couple of organizations where like-minded individuals can share their discoveries and promote their hobby, the North American Sundial Society (mentioned in the earlier article) and the British Sundial Society. There are other societies in different parts of the world although I didn’t have an opportunity to visit their sites. I also learned a new word: Gnomon. It has nothing to do with gnomes. It’s the part of a sundial that casts a shadow.
The world’s largest sundial is probably in Jaipur, India. I won’t focus much attention on it because Google Sightseeing already discussed it. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested. I’ll wait until you come back.
Sundial Bridge
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I discovered a particularly elegant example in Redding, California. A bridge shaped in the manner of a sundial spans the Sacramento River, joining the north and south campuses of the Turtle Bay Exploration Park. The operative word is "shaped" like a sundial since it’s not actually functional. As the North American Sundial Society explains,
When is a bridge not a bridge? When it’s almost a sundial. The 217 foot high suspension span called Sundial Bridge wants to be a sundial, and has come very close. The suspension pylon is aligned true north, but unfortunately performs as an inaccurate gnomon with an inclination of 49 deg (for bridge functionality) rather than for the 40.6 deg latitude of the site.
If we moved the bridge due-north to make it functional, changing its location to 49° latitude without changing the longitude (map) it would serve a bridge between the United States and Canada at O Avenue, a spot mentioned previously in Big Zero. I love life’s little coincidences.
Carefree Sundial
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Maybe I just like the name. Carefree Sundial sounds, well, so very carefree. The dial is found in a town of the same name outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Carefree is one of those upscale planned communities that sprouted from the desert for the benefit of snowbirds and retirees in the 1950′s. Residents live along Nonchalant Avenue, Never Mind Trail, Happy Hollow Drive, Lazy Lane, Dream Street, Ho Road, Hum Road, and Ho Hum Drive.
A shopping center within the development includes a large sundial centerpiece to accent a partial roundabout. From the North American Sundial Society, again:
A 90 ft. diameter horizontal dial with a large reflecting pool beneath the gnomon designed by John Yellott. The hour markers are 4 ft. diameter concrete circles. The dial is designed to show solar time corrected for the time zone offset. Thus the hour markers have been moved ahead of the solar time position. The hour lines are separated by alternating dark and light colored stones. The gnomon itself is 4 ft. wide, 62 ft. long and the tip is 35 ft. high. A pilot dial at a scale of 1/4 in. = 1ft. is at the South end of the large dial. It is constructed of gold-anodized aluminum with time lines at 10 minute intervals.
Actually Carefree seems a bit schizophrenic. Other roads within the community include Bloody Basin Road, Long Rifle Road and Sidewinder Road. Imagine living at the corner of Nonchalant and Bloody Basin (like this guy). It’s an odd juxtaposition.
Falcon Square Sundial
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I found this beauty listed as a Dial of the Month by the British Sundial Society. This is Falcon Square in Inverness, Scotland.
Four scaphe dials are located around the base of a 27-foot Mercat Cross in Falcon Square, Inverness. The obelisk is topped by a bronze unicorn, and decorated with four flying falcons. The dials are robustly designed by Emma Lavender, and show BST with declination lines marked by their zodiac symbols.
Got that? The small sundials are located on the base. I enjoyed the unicorn even more, though. It’s not everyday that one has an opportunity to view a unicorn high atop a column unless one lives in Scotland, where the royal unicorn is a symbol of the Scottish monarchy. We need more unicorn sundials.
Museum Puspa Iptek Bandung, Indonesia
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This single object explains why the vast preponderance of 12MC content focuses on English-speaking locations. It’s not because I don’t care about the rest of the world because I most certainly do, it’s because my comprehension of any language other than English falls terribly short of any level of usefulness. Google offered a very tantalizing option: thebiggestsundial.com only to lead me to a site written primarily in an Indonesian language. "The biggest sundial" seemed really specific and sounded like it was going to be English-friendly. I could recognize only a couple of words: "Sundial (Jam Matahari) adalah seperangkat alat yang digunakan sebagai petunjuk waktu semu lokal (local apparent time) dengan memanfaatkan MATAHARI yang menghasilkan bayang-bayang sebuah gnomon (batang atau lempengan yang bayang-bayangnya digunakan sebagai petunjuk waktu)."
Let me see: sundial… local apparent time… gnomon… and it went downhill from there.
Google Translate helped with basic meanings. It was still ridiculously difficult to uncover the actual location of the sundial. Eventually I found it but only because several visitors had posted on foursquare. The sundial was incorporated into the design of a building that houses the Puspa Iptek museum, a facility that focuses on science and technology.
Best Product I’ve Seen in a Long Time
I wish, I so wish I lived on the 51st latitude, north. Then I could purchase the Sundial Glass. I could combine my neurotic fixation on punctuality with my abundant appreciation of craft beers into one convenient package.
It’s an over-sized pint glass. It’s a sundial. It actually tells time! Unfortunately it was designed for Brighton, England although the website does explain that it will work anywhere along the same basic latitude. Kyle, the Basement Geographer, in British Columbia might be able to use it. Me? I’m out of luck until someone invents one for 39° north.
I received an email message the other day from a first-time reader who happened to stumble across 12MC randomly through a search engine, hoping to learn the answer to a burning question. I’d never covered the topic on the site before so I didn’t have a ready answer. It fascinated me though and of course I dropped all of my other research topics underway to pursue it further because I have a short attention span and I love to follow tangents. I put as much effort into the question as I’ve done for any article I’d post ordinarily so I might as well share the results with the rest of you.
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The reader who went by "James" recalled an anecdote from the not-too-distant past. He was traveling through Yuma, Arizona and wanted a bite to eat. Sometimes it’s tough finding a decent meal on the road and we all have our own ways to deal with that. I like to go to brewpubs under the theory if the food falls short at least the beer will be decent. James homes-in on casinos for the buffets. I hadn’t thought of that option before so I’ll have to add that to my travel tip list.
Anyway, he crossed the Colorado River — the border between California and Arizona — only to discover a small chunk of Arizona on the "wrong" side of the river with the state line running through the casino parking lot. It’s the Paradise Casino owned by the Quechan Tribe (formerly known as the Yuma Indians). I don’t believe it was an issue of legality since there are Native American casinos in California, too. However it’s not particularly germane to the anecdote so I’ll leave the question of this particular state-hugging casino alone. The more important aspect was the sliver of Arizona within territory one would ordinarily expect to belong to California.
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One is able to appreciate the full extent of the anomaly by zooming out the map a little further. Rivers don’t normally flow at right angles so it’s not like the current state border followed an old riverbed that changed over time. Why, James wondered, did this artifact exist?
I had no idea. I thought it might trace back to old Fort Yuma, constructed in the 1850′s on the California side of the river to protect the new settlement on what was then the New Mexico Territory. That was an interesting bit of history, however, it didn’t provide an explanation.
The answer turned out to be much more recent: March 12, 1963. It seemed crazy that two long-standing states (California since 1850 and Arizona since 1912) were still arguing over their common border as recently 1963 since it was supposed to be the Colorado River, and yet that was indeed the case. That’s when the two finally agreed upon an "Interstate Compact Defining the Boundary Between the States of Arizona and California." The United States Congress approved the Compact in 1966, thereby enshrining the odd jog in the border permanently. The Compact explained its logic:
The boundary between the State of Arizona and California on the Colorado River has become indefinite and uncertain because of the meanderings in the main channel of the Colorado River with the result that a state of confusion exists as to the true and correct location of the boundary, and the enforcement and administration of the laws of the two states and the United States have been rendered difficult.
It also provided, in excruciating detail, 34 points forming the new border in perpetuity (e.g., "700 feet to Point No. 28, which lies on the easterly shoulder line of said north-south road due east of the northeast corner of the stone retaining wall around the Indian School Hospital…"), along with requirements for another 234 subpoints not monumented.
This was elaborated upon further in a U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper published by the Government Printing Office, "Boundaries of the United States and the several States." The key reference can be found on Page 153.
Because determination of the position midchannel at the time California entered the Union would be difficult now, it was decided to place the boundary line in a position that would provide an equitable distribution of the land that had been affected by the movement of the riverbed.
A map found on the following page (Page 154) clearly showed the jog.
How the two states agreed that this particular block should become part of Arizona may never be known except to those involved in the 1963 negotiations. Was it because it was close to Yuma? Was it because it was easy to reach from the rest of Arizona? That remains unanswered. However it was clearly intended to compensate Arizona for changes in the course of the Colorado River that had not been well-documented over the prior century. It was an approximation so straight lines and right angles were appropriate and probably easier to survey.
Thanks James, and I hope you become a regular reader.
