The Streets of Carlsbad - Canal Street

View Southward from the Alonzo Luckey tower at
206. N. Canyon; Second section of Hagerman
Hotel completed, National Bank Building on Canal
Street completed. 

Did you ever wonder about the names of the streets in Carlsbad?  Here in the desert our busiest street is named Canal.  Most towns have streets named Main, Center, or Park, and tree streets, like Oak, or Elm.  Some were platted with named streets one direction and numbered cross streets.  How did Carlsbad’s streets get their names?  This column will reveal a little of the history of our town and how it grew to be the place we live today. 

            The town of Eddy was conceived by a group of promoters in 1887.  Charles B. Eddy, co-owner of the Eddy-Bissell Cattle Company, envisioned an irrigation project fed by the Pecos River.  Another irrigation promoter was Pat Garrett, the lawman famous for killing Billy the Kid.  These men teamed up with Charles W. Greene, Robert W. Tansill, along with Arthur Mermod, Joseph Stevens, and Elmer Williams to found the Pecos Land and Ditch Company.

            In 1888, The Ditch Company hired B.A. Nymeyer to survey and plat the first eighteen blocks of the municipality.  Six streets ran east-west and four streets ran north-south. The six east-west streets were named after investors or their friends. The four north-south streets were Canal, Canyon, Main, and River Streets.  Mr. Greene supposedly insisted the town be named for Mr. Eddy.  On September 15, 1888 they christened the venture by breaking a bottle of Champagne on a rock at the Pecos River crossing.  Mr. Eddy began planting cottonwood poles and marking out streets. The first town building was The Land and Ditch Company building, a wooden structure on Greene.  A few lots were sold for $50 each and construction began.

            The purpose of the venture was to create an oasis so inviting that people from back east would purchase lots from the Land and Ditch Company.  Advertisements placed in eastern newspapers lured people to move to Eddy.  The ads described the lush greenery made possible by the canals and ditches that delivered water from the Pecos River to almost every property in town.  These successful ads brought people from as far away as Switzerland to settle in the town with the “Canal.”