My column in today's Winnipeg Free Press is about the city's 1891 - 1893 experiment with a numbered street system. The names disappeared in May, with the exception of Portage, Main and Notre Dame, the latter renamed Central Avenue.
Publishers had to scramble to produce new maps and street guides. Here is how Henderson's Directory explained the new street system. They also included a three page conversion chart of names to numbers and numbers to names.
Below is a handy "pocket guide" printed by the Manitoba Free Press on May 22, 1891. It included the preamble: "In order to retard a little of the premature aging of our citizens, the Free Press extends them the following parallel list of old and new names."
You'll notice one leftover from the numbered system is that Notre Dame is still the dividing line between streets. Examples are Princess and Donald, Ellen and Carlton etc.
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