In the Beulah Street area of the Franconia District, lots of people on the street still call it Beulah Road, even though the name was officially changed in July 1964. In fact, that month 59 years ago, there were lots of name changes to streets in Fairfax County that were manually recorded in the “Old-New Street Name List,” which became effective in April 1965.

In the case of Beulah Street, there was a conflict with another Beulah Road in Vienna, but residents along the street resisted change and still refer to it as “Beulah Road.” There are many such situations across the county.

This Old-New Street Name List document was created at a county board meeting to "eliminate duplicate existing street names and to officially assign names to unnamed streets" the document states. The document is part of the "Official Street Names and Property Numbering Atlas," and it looks like it was painstakingly produced on a manual typewriter. Oh the humanity! It was even signed by Edna A. Bicksler, the Clerk of “said” Board, whatever that means.

According to the document, Beverly Drive is now Beverly Manor Drive, and Boothe Place in Bellehaven (sic) is now called Edgewood Terrace. That's a complete rename, could the original be named after John Wilkes Booth? Who knows.

Originally there were three Cedar Lanes, four Cedar Streets and the three Elm Streets are now Elm Terrace, Elm Place and Elm Drive. In addition, there were four Maple Streets, six Oak Streets, four Pine Streets and five Ridge Roads.

The numbered road system followed some kind of logic, although it isn't entirely clear from first look at this pamphlet. For example, the stretch of road between Rt. 123 and Rt. 642 is now Rt. 600 or Silverbrook Road, while Rt. 640 between Old Keene Mill Road and Hooes Road is to be called Sydenstricker Road. This list goes on for 112 secondary roads.