In the 1950s through 1975 Maryville had a strange battle over the street name for the road going north from Administration Building over whether it should be called Truman Road or North College Drive.
In the 1950s, the area was farmland, and the name “Truman Road” first appeared in descriptions, presumably in reference to Missouri’s Harry Truman, who was president, and to the road to his home in Independence, which was called Truman Road. However, according to stories, the first resident on the Road was adamantly opposed to Truman and had a handwritten sign in the yard reading “North College Drive.”
The name Truman Road was used by the Maryville School District on bus route maps, and when Riegel Diaper was located in the area, it used Truman Road for its address. A 1962 article notes:
The reported cause of the confusion was the first man to build a home on the street. An ardent member of the opposite party from the former President, this man, now deceased, said he would never live on Truman Road. And he placed a sign in his yard over 10 years ago, which still stands, calling it North College Drive. According to a plat filed in 1950 at the Nodaway County recorder’s office, the street is named Truman Road. Many older residents, the city manager, and the city engineer’s office consider the proper name to be Truman Road. But the Maryville post office, the city directory, and a 1961 city zoning and planning commission map all list the street as North College Drive. Many other maps at city hall consider it an extension of Munn Avenue, and (fitting the grid where north/south street names are based on First Street), it should be called North Munn.
In 1975, the city council officially renamed it North College Drive in a 3-1 vote, citing resident desires. City officials noted that until 1975, it had never been officially named.
But the renaming was not without its controversies. The College had been converted to a University in 1972, and the street name by the administration building had been renamed from College Drive to University Drive. It also broke the city’s grid-naming plan, under which north-south streets were determined by First Street.
North College Drive was symbolically separated from the university by the rickety wooden “up and over bridge” over the Wabash track
The sketch below is similar to what the old “College Bridge” looked like at the beginning of North College Drive.
- AI Jokes on The Renaming
- They renamed Truman Road to North College Drive because the first resident didn’t like Truman — local history’s version of “If you don’t like the neighbor, rename the street.”
- The city argued for North Munn to match the grid; apparently the street had an identity crisis and a Sudoku problem.
- By the time they renamed it the school called itself a University — so technically it should’ve been North University Drive. The sign committee didn’t get that memo; they were still on lunch.
- Maryville already had a College Drive and a College Park Drive, so now you can take three different roads to the same place depending on how pretentious you feel.
- The bridge over the Wabash Railroad was so rickety and low-tonnage, people treated it like a blind date — you never knew what was going to show up.
- Locals said the bridge was where horsepower met “hope this holds.” The surveyor wrote “good luck” on the engineering report.
- If you wanted suspense in Maryville, you didn’t go to the theater — you crossed the up-and-over bridge and waited to see whether your axle survived.
- When they installed the new North College Drive sign, half the town asked if it came with a parental advisory: “May contain sudden drops and surprise trains.”
- The first resident who disliked Truman was asked for a replacement name and handed the council a stack of rejection letters — democracy, Maryville style.
- The city clerk recommended North Munn; the college president recommended North University; the bridge recommended “please don’t.” No one asked the bridge.
- Directions now: “Turn left on North College Drive, or North Munn if you’re using an old map, or North University if your diploma is old-fashioned. If you hit the rickety bridge, you went too far.”
- At graduation they hand out diplomas and a complimentary bridge-crossing helmet — because nothing says higher education like surviving municipal infrastructure.