Future streets could be named for Aunt Hepsey Brown or Marigold Motel.
DIXFIELD – Future residents may live on such streets as Aunt Hepsey Brown, Bowery Corner and Blue Bird, all names firmly rooted in Dixfield’s history, thanks to Charlotte Collins and Vickie Carrier.
Selectmen approved a 30-name list of potential, preferred names for future roads and developments at their meeting Monday.
“Some future developer could use this,” said Town Manager John Madigan, who thanked the two women for their work on Monday. “These are all pertinent names.”
Dixfield is dealing with at least two current developments, said Collins, and more may be on the way. But, the idea for the new street names came about because of the E-911 emergency system, which requires all streets to have names and numbers, she said.
Collins is deputy treasurer for the town and a member of the Dixfield Historical Society. Carrier is the E-911 officer and deputy town clerk.
Collins said on Tuesday that as she was reading through the list of current street names several weeks ago, she thought some could have been more closely tied to the town and its history. Also, having a list approved by the board in advance should make it easier whenever a subdivision needs a street name, she said.
None of the names is required to be used, Collins said. But she hopes they will be.
The list includes the names of some of the town’s founders and settlers, such as Holland, Axtell, Stockbridge and Stowell.
It also includes the names of former restaurants, such as the Blue Bird, where Collins and some of her classmates during the 1960s worked or hung out. It was on Weld Street beside the current Towle’s Hardware and served the best pies, she said. Hepsibah Coolidge Brown had a mountain named for her, said Collins, so a street named Aunt Hepsey Brown makes historic sense.
Happy Hollow, the site of a tavern, is located near Bowery Corner, a place where horses were once housed overnight. They are both near Severy Hill.
The proposed street names would not be necessarily limited to these historic areas, said Collins.
Other proposed street names include Stanley, named for Henry O. Stanley, one of Maine’s first fish commissioners. He was a cousin of the Stanley brothers of Kingfield, who invented the Stanley Steamer. Another inventor, Leonard Norcross, created the diving bell. A street could be named in his honor.
Former motels, such as the Marigold, would have a street named for them, as would a general store, for the Butterfield family.
“Choosing such names would have a little more meaning for the town and for the residents,” said Collins.
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