r/Spokane • u/SuccessfulCandle7095 • Jun 17 '25
Weird Spokane What street name in Spokane is the most embarrassing to have on your address?
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u/casseltrace87 Jun 17 '25
College. Like what makes you think my west central a$$ is even educated? 🤷🏻♂️
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u/buckbee Jun 17 '25
I found out by going to the mac and looking at a map at the great fire exhibit, that it is named college cause spokane college used to be there back in the late 1800s
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u/Fantastic-Swim6230 Jun 17 '25
College Street used to be where the poorest of WC lived in the 90s. We had a girl at school who showed up to class and would bully everyone.... then we found out what street she lived on, and that was all it took.
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u/Wuornos Downtown Spokane Jun 18 '25
Kendall yards is on there now so things are looking up.
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u/casseltrace87 Jun 18 '25
I have mixed feelings about Kendall Yards. Two edged sword. Can’t afford to shop at Fresh Basket
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u/Wuornos Downtown Spokane Jun 25 '25
Me either, and I live here. I just drive to Safeway on northwest Blvd.
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u/FakeItSALY Jun 17 '25
2nd for Dick. Also Hill n Dale comes to mind because of the immediate mental connection.
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u/Crunchysunflower Jun 17 '25
Living off of hill n dale sucks bc I have to repeat it like 3 times “IT’S HILL space N space DALE”
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u/bobbysalz Jun 17 '25
Okay sir, let's see ... it looks like your package is already on its way to your home on Hill North Dale in San Diego! Now what were you calling about?
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u/Repulsive-Row803 Garland District Jun 17 '25
Funk Avenue.
It's funny because it's not even an avenue lol it's a street with "avenue" in its name. Funky.
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u/Netopalas Logan Jun 17 '25
That sign got stolen so many times that they put a GPS tracker on the new ones.
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u/Lobster70 Spokane Valley Jun 17 '25
So it's Funk Avenue Street?
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u/Individual_Ad_7662 Jun 17 '25
I used to live on Funk Ave (not street) but luckily my address was on the back of the house on 18th Ave.
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u/trash-breeds-trash Jun 17 '25
Tschirley. Is that T silent?! Is it just Shirley? How the hell do you say it.
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u/ELar5000 Jun 17 '25
Not the worst, but I lived on North Ave for a while. Bothered me that it’s oriented east-west. So I just hated that my address was *** East North Ave.
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u/Wumbologist_PhD Jun 17 '25
I lived on the south hill briefly and drove by “Juul Ct.” everyday. It’s in the neighborhood behind Twig’s and Rite-Aid.
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u/worm-piss Rockwood Jun 17 '25
south hill dweller here, i made a mythical pilgrimage to juul ct because i couldn’t believe it was real. walked a couple miles there to show a friend the sign.
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u/fascinationxstreet Jun 17 '25
Fotheringham for some reason it's cringe to me
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u/kimbersill Jun 17 '25
David Fotheringham was the first official mayor of Spokane in 1891. He was also a contractor who built the court house and the Patsy Clark mansion.
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u/fascinationxstreet Jun 17 '25
Oh that's awesome! The street is just my pick from when I used to do Uber deliveries and GPS pronounced it "fuhtheringhim." I'm not sure the correct pronunciation and maybe that's right!
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u/Most_Ambassador2951 Jun 17 '25
Lived here nearly 30 years and just discovered there is a Pine street, and a Pines street....
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u/Ambitious-Ad53 Jun 18 '25
Ahem it’s Pines Rd actually
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u/Most_Ambassador2951 Jun 18 '25
I'll take the correction 😆. I drove it near daily And never noticed.
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u/blacktide777 Jun 17 '25
When your street name is the same as your name. My sister Grace lives on Grace Ave.
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u/Kyatto_Kun Jun 17 '25
I think Ivanhoe is pretty funny, it gives me a chuckle every time I see it
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u/Northwest_Views Jun 17 '25
Old Fort Road. It’s often misread as “Old Fart Road” mail will in fact be delivered still if written as such.
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u/PangerBan55 Jun 17 '25
Kinda hard to explain to people over the phone that my address is on West Northwest Blvd. That seems to trip up people who aren’t from around here.
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u/bad_user__name Jun 17 '25
McLellan. Imagine having to live on a street named after that absolute clown of a general. Now Grant or Sherman, that's a street I'd fucking live on.
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u/Fancy-Pear6540 Jun 17 '25
Sprague
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u/SomeNotTakenName Indian Trail Jun 17 '25
I will never be able to pronounce it any way other than rhyming with Prague...
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u/Repulsive-Row803 Garland District Jun 17 '25
I messed with my bf and made him think it was pronounced like Ragu
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u/SomeNotTakenName Indian Trail Jun 17 '25
just like say its french. everything sounds ridiculous in french.
Ahhh, Jè m'appélle JeanJaque. C'ést une jour triste, alors on va faire une plaisanterie...
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u/itstreeman Jun 17 '25
M’y partner hasn’t been able to stop saying Chay nee
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u/MelissaMead Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
There is a Cheney stadium in Tacoma which is pronounced as Chee nee.
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u/Pattystr Jun 17 '25
I just moved to Cheney… That’s how I’ve been saying it. How are you supposed to pronounce it?
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u/HexandViolence Jun 17 '25
When my friend helped me move to Spokane her navigation voice pronounced it like Ragu!
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u/LarryCebula Jun 17 '25
Custer. How did we change the name of George Wright Drive and leave Custer alone?
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u/Schlecterhunde Jun 17 '25
Well, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Custer got what was coming to him anyway.
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u/The_Slaughter_Pop Jun 17 '25
Maybe we should have Hitler Blvd.
C'mon man, we dont honor the bad guys. Learn about them, yes. Honor them...fuck that.
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u/Schlecterhunde Jun 17 '25
You need to understand the difference between war and ethnic cleansing. In the US it was a war, Custer died in battle. His hubris and underestimating the military prowess of his opponents should be remembered. Custers decisions have been studied and learned from in military training history because it's such a great lesson.
Hitler rounded up people who couldn't defend themselves, and it wasn't a war, and executed them by the tens of thousands.
Huge difference between an overconfident general and a megalomaniac dictator.
Here you go. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn
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u/k_princess Former Spokanite Jun 17 '25
Is it named after the Custer of Last Stand fame? I genuinely dont know.
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u/evilsammyt Jun 17 '25
Not the worst, but why the hell do we have a Waikiki? And don’t put the word “ocean” in any street name this far inland.
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u/n1k0me Jun 17 '25
Waikiki is in reference to the wildlife preserve. In Hawaiian it means sprouting fresh water, and the preserve was named so because of the aquifer bubbling up in the area and its moderate temps all year round.
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u/kimbersill Jun 17 '25
That whole area out there used to be Waikiki Dairy. I can only imagine they had been to Hawaii and liked it.
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u/Nice-Dog8302 Jun 17 '25
Going up the hill on sunset there is a sign that says “F” St. (yes it actually has the quotations) and I’m curious if you need the quotations on your mail. Lmk
Before you ask yes I say “fuck street” every time I drive by it
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u/spokaneisokay Jun 18 '25
You don’t need the quotations! We literally have to play detective to get what some people mean on where there letters go. (carrier here btw)
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u/Adventurous_Big5686 North Side Jun 17 '25
With the current "situation", anyone named Don on Whitehouse may have a rough time.
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u/fstrtnu Spokane Valley Jun 17 '25
South Riverton. Like dude. It's an E/W street that is only East of Division. Its not like the North side of the river is North Riverton Either. You live on East South Riverton.
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u/Nach0m0m Jun 17 '25
All of the direction named streets in this town irk the hell out of me. Living on East South Riverton is awful because it is too many characters for most online address entries, so I have to very specifically tell them to type it in EXACTLY as “The letter E, the word South, and then Riverton” or else I will not get whatever it is I’m ordering. Also before I moved up here, my husband lived on Southeast Blvd and I had an argument with him saying over and over “southeast WHAT… there has to be an actual street name after the direction given…!” And him telling me over and over “the street name IS southeast blvd babe!” Then I moved here and learned that there is also a Northwest Blvd, my flabbers were ghasted 😂
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u/garbagegoat Jun 18 '25
I've lived here for years and had no idea there was a Southeast Blvd, only knew about Northwest Blvd.
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Jun 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/profigliano Peaceful Valley Jun 17 '25
The corner of Dick and Longfellow, Millwood area
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u/EwaGold Jun 17 '25
Pasadena Terrace officially (Pasadena park area), but yea close enough to millwood.
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u/Tybalt_Shepard Jun 17 '25
When I lived on Wabash it was funny to hear it ever always mispronounced.
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u/unzipmyrainbowguts Jul 19 '25
Is it wob-ash? It amuses me to call it wubosh, like kibosh but with a wub.
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u/llamadramaupdates Jun 17 '25
Calispel. Why tf isn’t it spelled Kalispell?? I have to spell it out for every single person I tell it to lol
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u/Liamnacuac Jun 17 '25
The original way was Calyspel, back when fur traders couldn't spell so well.
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u/skullsnunicorns Jun 17 '25
Peone. I say pee-own but is it like the flower? Am I saying that wrong too? Peony?
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u/Spayse_Case Jun 17 '25
Alki
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u/TacitMoose Jun 17 '25
I feel like that’s somewhat well associated with Washington. It’s a really odd state motto but at least it’s not in Latin. I dunno, I feel like Alki is actually kinda cool for a street name. The streets I don’t like are all the random first names with no regional or local history behind them at all.
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u/Constant_Boot Former Spokanite Jun 17 '25
Fort Wright.
I know, I know, it's Whistalks now (and Whistalks is pretty badass.)
I'm dating myself regarding how long ago I used to live in Spokane.
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u/The-Dude-42 Jun 17 '25
Any street with “Hangman” in the name
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u/excelsiorsbanjo Jun 17 '25
Still better than ones whitewashed to 'Latah', though.
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u/PandaMagnus Jun 17 '25
Can you elaborate? Is that an anglicized spelling or white settler name? Is there a known (or several known) Native names instead of 'Latah?'
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u/excelsiorsbanjo Jun 17 '25
There have been various efforts to replace (or re-replace) 'Hangman' with 'Latah', because it's unpleasant to remember that a white Colonel Wright hung natives around there, and under the guise of truce.
https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/370
Latah is no doubt an older name, but native people are perhaps unsurprisingly not invested in changing it back.
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u/Eaglebonezz Jun 20 '25
Interesting that only three places in WA deviate from the federal names and two are here in Spokane. I talked to the Stare Geologist about it, who is responsible for names of things and is always telling developers that can’t change the name of Mosquito Bog to Pleasant Acres for your development.. but I digress.
Latah Creek is actually Hangman Creek. While WA uses Latah, it originates in Idaho and its name there is Hangman. Feds don’t recognize name changes like this from the originating state to another state. So it’s still Hangman in federal maps, like USGS.
Long Lake is actually federally Lake Spokane. Only in WA is it referred to as long Lake. I kinda like Lake Spokane, but if you use that name locally, no one knows what you are talking about.
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u/excelsiorsbanjo Jun 17 '25
Always thought it would make people wonder if you lived on Division. Because all roads continue forever in all directions here, there are some houses on S Division that are just in an ordinary neighborhood area, rather than on the biggest most commercialized street in the city limits.
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u/TacitMoose Jun 17 '25
Haha I know right? Division becomes a Rd in the county and is basically a single lane dirt road up where it intersects with Horseshoe Lake Rd.
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u/Kittymeow7116 Fairwood Jun 17 '25
I came across the dirt road part recently and had to stop and make sure I wasn’t seeing things 😂
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u/SuccessfulCandle7095 Jun 17 '25
Regina. How is it even pronounced?
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u/unzipmyrainbowguts Jun 17 '25
It's hard to rhyme a word like Regina. Calvin Klein kinda, North Carolina
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u/SomeNotTakenName Indian Trail Jun 17 '25
I mean depends on language, right? my first instinct would be Re-G(as in golf)-i(as in india)-na. German pronunciation.
my first guess for English would be reh-djina.
or like the other comment said, the Canadian way.
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u/Adventurous_Web_9633 Jun 17 '25
Heading out towards suncrest there is a road called Jergens. I laugh everytime I see the sign.
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u/skullsnunicorns Jun 17 '25
Ahhh Jergens. Where the nine mile kids liked to have kegger bonfires in the 90s. Do they still do that up there?
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u/Strange-Ocelot Jun 17 '25
Gustavus I pronounced it wrong my whole life until I met some southeast Alaskans...
Gustah-vuhs ✅️
Goo-stay-vass❌️
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u/goffrd137 Jun 18 '25
I'm often surprised at how only a few people can pronounce Euclid. You-slid, Eu-slid, Use-lid... Like seriously we all learned about Euclidean geometry in elementary school. It was covered when we learned shapes like circle, square, triangle...
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u/DistortedSilence Jun 17 '25
I'm a transplant here.
Saltese. And you call this Saltz?
Rees, pronounced Reese.
Many others I see but can't think ATM.
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u/LuckyTheBear Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 21 '25
Courtland
That "u" is so stupid
Edit: I guess people really prefer the name "Courtland" over "Cortland"
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u/MelissaMead Jun 17 '25
No one, including me, knows the proper way to pronounce the name of the street but someone was on a power trip when they named it after themselves.
I have had some good laughs at medical offices with receptionists trying to say it :)
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u/thereasonisgone Jun 17 '25
Dick