Source:White/content
Once a fellow goes burrowing into the archives for information on city streets, he finds out a lot more than he started out to look for.
He also stirs up unexpected public interest.
Mysteries bob up, too. And one of these centers about a street eliminated by the march of progress at the Point—Fancourt. A reader would like to know about that street, for whom it was named. Seems as if the Fancourt name is a rare one.
Miss Rose Demorest, Pennsylvania Room librarian at Carnegie Library, and I have become a bit search-weary over it by now and as yet neither of us has been able to uncover anything about it.
But any effort to explain fully the many mysteries and changes of street names in the Triangle is almost bound to fall far short. For one thing there were no "avenues" in the Borough of Pittsburgh when it was laid out in 1795, according to an old map. Could be "avenue" wasn't known then, because every thoroughfare was listed as a "street," except for a few alleys.
Diamond and Oliver Once Alleys
Among the latter were the present Diamond St. and Oliver Ave., the latter originally known as Virgin Alley. Liberty and Penn were then streets. There was no Duquesne Way and all streets below Liberty Ave. ended at the Allegheny River.
Starting at Fort Pitt, the streets on the lower side of Liberty were Marbury, Hay, Pitt, St. Clair, Irvine and Hand, with unnamed streets—or alleys—sandwiched between them except for Marbury and Hay, and there were three streets without names beyond Hand.
The streets we now know as "avenues," First to Seventh, were Fifth St., Sixth St., etc. Years later they became avenues and the ones below Liberty became numbered streets, their historical names being scrapped.
Confusion and Bewilderment
In virtually all cases the numbered avenues and the numbered streets intersected very close to each other at Liberty, but were not considered one. This caused confusion in the mails, bewilderment for visitors.
Not in the 1795 plat of the Borough of Pittsburgh, Exchange Way was later between and parallel with Penn and Liberty, except for breaks here and there, and extended to Tenth St. Sections of it still exist.
Around 1910, partly to end confusion, partly because of a street reshuffle occasioned by annexation of Allegheny, the streets below Liberty were again renamed, but only from old Fifth St. down to the Point. Fifth became Stanwix, Fourth became Fancourt, Third became Barbeau.
Stanwix, as written before, was named for General John Stanwix, builder of the last Fort Pitt. Barbeau gots [sic] its name from a map maker.
But Fancourt! There is no such historical name so far as Miss Demorest and I have been able to learn. There was no early family of that name in Pittsburgh on record.
Some readers may know something about it. If they do, Miss Demorest and I would like to know, too.
