Yup. This is the name of a real road in rural North Carolina. I drove by it today and I immediately thought of tiny roach herds, controlled by itty bitty roach cowboys, with entertainment provided during the roach rodeo…
Any interesting road names in your neck of the woods? And better yet, do you know the story BEHIND the interesting name? I have no idea where the roach ranch came from.
You wouldn’t want to live there Johnny. It’s just off I-405, near Southcenter Mall and there’s way too much traffic and noise around it, though Monster Road itself never turned into a major thoroughfare. Apparently, way back when it was a rural, farming community, there was a family by the last name of Monster who lived there and that’s how the road got its name. At least that’s the story I’ve been told.
About 15-20 miles south of Port Townsend, WA, there’s The Egg and I Road. It was named in honor of Betty MacDonald who had written a very popular book in the mid-forties by the same name (except for the ‘Road’ part) and had once lived there. It detailed her unhappy but humorous misadventures as the wife of a chicken farmer.
If you’ve ever seen any of the old Ma and Pa Kettle movies, they were based on her characters. I understand that some of the neighbors were angry about how she portrayed Ma and Pa Kettle (lazy, slovenly, uneducated country bumpkins) because they thought she was actually writing about them. Betty MacDonald claimed they weren’t based on anyone specific but a compilation of a bunch of people.
By the way, I’ve always liked the title of her sequel, which documented the months she spent in a sanitarium in North Seattle with a case of tuberculosis. She doesn’t name the sanitarium but I know where it is. The buildings haven’t been used for that purpose in many years but it would be cool (sorta) if the road in front would be renamed The Plague and I Road. Doubt that’ll happen though.
I remember one night I was riding a bus into Buffalo, NY, and I saw a highway exit sign for Locust Ave. I hear it’s right next to Plague Boulevard and Boils Drive. :dubious:
What I meant, of course, was that I wish the street I live on was called Monster Road. Or Hideous Misshapen Beast Drive, or Enn Trail, or Hellish Obscenity Street. But I like the sound of Monster Road.
Dad and I were driving through California City when I was about 15. We passed by a street called Hugo. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if the next street was called Victor?’ It was.