Source:No-longer-virgin/content
Virgin alley has passed into history. The thoroughfare that for so many years bore this title is now Oliver avenue. The joint resolution of councils bestowing the new name on the thoroughfare was signed about 11 o'clock this morning by Mayor W. B. Hays.
The naming of the street is a tribute to the late Henry W. Oliver, who was responsible in a large degree for the great real estate development of the down-town district and did more than anybody else to secure the passage through councils of the ordinance ordering the widening of the alley into a street, between Smithfield street and Liberty avenue. The Press proposed the name of Oliver avenue and in a few days showed the popularity of the suggestion to such an extent that councils passed without debate the resolution making the change in the name.
Oliver avenue is destined to become one of the important thoroughfares in the down-town district. Director "Eddie" Bigelow, of the department of public works, announced some time ago that the thoroughfare would soon be widened above Smithfield street.
A number of measures passed at the last meeting of Select Council were sent to the mayor this morning and he signed a number of them during the morning. An ordinance that received his signature was one locating and relocating Shady avenue, between Monitor street and the Beechwood boulevard. The fight over this ordinance had as one of its features, a few days ago, a fistic encounter between Robert Oestermaier and Attorney Curtis M. Willock. As Shady avenue was located previous to the signing of the relocating ordinance today there was a five-foot strip of land belonging to H. H. Willock lying between the street and the property owned by Ostermaier and Thomas G. McClure, former county treasurer. Ostermaier and McClure made the statement that an attempt had been made to have them to pay a fancy price for the five-foot strip in order to secure a frontage on Shady avenue. Curtis M. Willock is a brother of H. H. Willock. The effect of the ordinance signed today is to bring the street up to the Ostermaier–McClure property.
Another ordinance signed by the mayor this morning is the one giving the city's consent to the annexation of Elliott borough.
