Have you ever driven on No Name Uno Road and wondered, what is the deal with that name? So have we. To slake our curiously over the curious names of some of Gilroy’s streets, we did some sleuthing to figure out how and why some of these streets in Gilroy got their names.
Back in 2007, Joe Blundo, a retired Santa Clara County road worker, sat down with the Dispatch to set the record straight on how the street got its name.
“This happened when the freeway went in,” said Blundo, who helped build U.S. Highway 101 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “There was a frontage road there and we took it over, and for everything we did, we charged it to the road. Material, labor, everything was charged to a specific road. So we had to have a name for the road. You can’t just say you spent $5 million in South Santa Clara County. You had to say what road you spent it on.”
Since every road needs a name, Blundo came up with No Name Uno as a placeholder until a permanent name could be dreamt up. No Name Uno was used for documentation purposes while the road was being built and Blundo waited for Gilroy to come up with another name.
That day never came. Blundo eventually grew tired of waiting and officially submitted No Name Uno as the street’s name.
“We were waiting for the city of Gilroy and the county and we waited and waited, and after two years I put in a notice with the county engineer for it as No Name Uno,” Blundo said. “It could have been named anything. We could have called it Joe or Pete.”
Despite the consternation of Saint Louise Medical center and the confusion of local motorist, the name endures.
Another street oddity is I.O.O.F Street. The name is derived from the fraternal organization The International Order of Odd Fellows, who operated an orphanage where the offices for Rebekah Children’s Services currently resides on the street. The land on which the building sits was donated by wealthy South Valley philanthropist Catherine Hoxett, who also donated money to install the clock in Old City Hall.
