To the editor:

Regarding names, A. D. Searl’s map of “Lawrence City, Kanzas Territory,” surveyed in October 1854, clearly labels “Pinkney” Street.However, in my search of early Lawrence newspapers, both “Pinkney” and “Pinckney” were used interchangeably, even by the same newspapers and sometimes within the same article. Mayor Blood recommended erecting bridges over ravines at “Winthrop [7th] and Pinckney” (1857), and a new bridge was built on “Pinkney” street (1863). Sidewalks were laid on Massachusetts “between Pinckney and Warren streets” (1860) and on both sides of “Pinkney” street (1870). Both spellings appeared for the same corner locations: The Congregational church at Louisiana (1859, 1868), the Kimball Brothers’ foundry at Tennessee (1868, 1873), a shoe shop at Mass. run by Henry Fuel (a Black shoemaker) (1872, 1879), a boarding house for Black folks at New Hampshire (1886), a new drinking fountain at Mass. (1887), and a grocery store at Indiana (1887, 1889). The new school house was constructed at “Pinkney and Mississippi” (1872); school enrollment at “Pinkney” stood at 207 in 1899; and “Pinckney was the pioneer school” that published a student-written newspaper, The Clarion, in 1913 (1922). Picnics were held at “Pinckney park” since 1894.

No articles reported on whether the street was originally named for William Pinkney (1764-1822), Charles C. Pinckney (1746-1825), or “Pinckney street” in Boston. After years of “agitation” by the women’s Civic League, “Pinckney street” was changed to “Sixth Street” in 1913. Let this be a spelling lesson to those who wish to change a long-standing, historical name.

Jeanne Klein,

Lawrence