After the initial boom of subdivision plats around the turn of the century, new developments within the city limits slowed somewhat, with most new plats from 1905 to 1914 being additions to existing subdivisions. In this period, the plat of Avondale occupies a singular place in East Lansing history.
Bounded by Burcham, Hagadorn, Beech and Gunson Streets, Avondale was platted in 1913 on unincorporated land in Meridian Township, its western edge touching the East Lansing city limits. Because it was outside the city, Avondale was exempt from its zoning laws. The plat was filed by Caleb D. Perkins, who is a mystery—he does not appear in any city directories or newpaper articles in that era. The surveyor however, Roy J. Robb, contributed his skills to numerous subdivisions during a career that spanned at least four decades.
As the city grew in subsequent years, Avondale was absorbed, and streets of neighboring subdivisions had their names carried into Avondale, even though most did not follow a straight line as they crossed the former border. Two-thirds of Avondale’s original street names have changed, matching Fairview for the highest rate of renamed streets of any subdivision in East Lansing:
| Original Name | Current Name |
| Belmont | Burcham |
| Kensington | Snyder |
| Melrose | Beech |
| Emerson | Gunson |
| Cornell | (unchanged) |
| Oxford | Stoddard |
| Irving | Spartan |
| Virginia | (unchanged) |
| Lexington | (unchanged) |
| Clifton | Hagadorn |
Belmont Avenue was platted as a boulevard, adding an extra roadway parallel to Burcham Drive with a 33-foot-wide median between the two streets, as shown in the map above. This gap was due to the interurban right-of-way, built along Burcham in 1905. After the demise of the interurban, Belmont and the right-of-way were eliminated by extending Avondale’s north-south streets to Burcham and platting the intervening spaces into lots.
Beech Street had its name changed after Strathmore attached to it, though its original name, Melrose Avenue, carries on to the east across Hagadorn Road.
Kestenbaum has long been a source for the former street names of Avondale, but the original plat map reveals that source contains a couple of errors. It mistakenly claims that Cornell, rather than Oxford, was changed to Stoddard. Also, it seems to be a long-standing urban myth of East Lansing that Virginia Avenue was originally named Virgin, a statement repeated by Kestenbaum. Unfortunately for the myth (and for word puzzle fans who would spot its anagram Irving), it has been named for the state, or possibly the university founded by Thomas Jefferson, all along.1
| Old Marble School, 693 N. Hagadorn Rd. (1934) |  |
| Willmarth Property (Chester Clark House), 1101 Burcham Dr. (1905) |  |
Next: Bungalow Knolls
- Kestenbaum, p. 20. Michigan OLSR. ↩︎
Leave a Reply